Ben C Smith

I am interested in positive evidence for mythicism. I have read much on this board about not trusting our extant sources (the Christian references lied, the Jewish and pagan references were forged) for the career or even the existence of Jesus, but strictly speaking a mistrust of the sources by itself properly leads to historical agnosticism (we do not know if he was historical or not), not flat-out mythicism (he was definitely not historical). What, then, are the actual positive indices against the historicity of Jesus? What data are better explained by a mythical Jesus turned historical than by an historical Jesus made legendary?

Thanks in advance.

Ben.

Chris Weimer

I asked this exact question in the other thread "Yeshu..." No one has yet to present any evidence.

jjramsey

Technically, this is the wrong question. The right question is

"Is the body of data that we have better explained by a mythical Jesus turned historical than by an historical Jesus made legendary?"

The problem with your question is that anyone can cherry-pick some of the data and say that their theory fits that data, and overlook what doesn't fit.

Vorkosigan

Exactly. Evidence is only as good as its interpretive framework. The positive evidence lies in the early Christian epistles' view of Jesus as a heaven-sent savior figure.

One should add that historicists lack methodological support for their historical claims, especially with respect to the gospel data. You could just as well have entitled this thread as "positive evidence for historicism?"

Vorkosigan

Ben C Smith

I am afraid I am not seeing the acute difference between my data better explained and your body of data better explained. Is it just a matter of emphasis that I am missing?

I would think that anybody could cherry-pick some of the data from a body of data as well. I may have missed your point.

Ben.

jjramsey

Sort of. Think of it as the difference between finding the curve that is the best fit to all the data points versus a curve that fits some of the points but misses the rest by a mile. IMHO, I think the mythicists can do the latter but not the former.

Ben C Smith

An interesting statement; what does it look like on the ground? Say I sit down and read Josephus and find myself believing that there really was a fellow named Jesus of Ananus who was punished for prophesying against Jerusalem several years before the war. How would you characterize the interpretive framework that led to my thinking this? How would you characterize the interpretive framework that would lead one to conclude that Jesus of Ananus never existed?

If that particular analogy is unsuitable, please let me know what analogy would work.

In what way does being a heavensent savior figure disqualify an historical personage in our sources?

That may be, but the issue at stake here for me is historical agnosticism versus positive mythicism. I may have to pay that piper when I turn to positive evidence for historicism, but not on this thread.

Could have, but did not. Maybe later.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Ah, I see what you mean now. I agree thoroughly.

However, I would really even be content on this thread to hear just isolated points in positive support of a mythicist position, even if other more substantial points in favor of historicity are overlooked. I am trying to put my finger on the pulse of the mythicist viewpoint.

I would be interested, for instance, in hearing Vork out on the heavenly savior stuff; what traits or trends do the epistles attribute to Jesus that could not in that period of history be attributed to an historical figure?

Ben.

Amaleq13

It wasn't the ability to explain any specific pieces of data that made mythicism appear attractive to me several years ago but its ability to explain an overall pattern that, even though I've since moved away from that position, still seems contrary to what I would think would be expected.

The order in which the NT is arranged (ie Gospels first, Paul second) is how I would think we would expect a religious movement inspired by a historical figure to be written about. I would expect to first find semi-biographical stories about the founder and later find more and more elaborate theological interpretations of his life/actions. We see a microcosm of this sort of pattern if the Gospels are arranged in the order most scholars think they were written (ie Mark to John). That pattern of development seems to be entirely expected and, if Paul's letters followed John, the pattern extends to the point where the historical guy is completely ignored in favor of the fully developed theological figure.

But how the NT is organized is the exact opposite of order in which the texts were written. We start with an already fairly well-developed theological figure completely overshadowing any historical man who inspired it and we have to wait a few decades before anybody starts to write about him.

Maybe Paul's specific agenda of obtaining a competitive appearance of authority is what screws everything up for me but everything is screwed up, IMO, and mythicism gives (gave?) the appearance, at least, of unscrewing it.

Jobar

I just recently found Did Jesus Christ really live? by Marshall J. Gauvin. I suspect it's old hat to the experts here, but I was delighted to read his excellent defense of the mythicist position. In particular, I found his analysis of what Paul did not say to be most powerful:

Perhaps this might be considered as negative evidence, not positive; but you can't have positive evidence for something nonexistent!

added- While I'm only an interested amateur of Biblical criticism, I am definitely a mythicist. more on that in Jesus: entirely mythical, or a historical person?