judge

why bother

bacht

If this were an average web forum with average people I would make claims about what I think did or didn't happen.

In this group I'm an amateur, with very little background in the subject. You may be right that the question is settled, but I don't have the credentials to make that kind of claim here. To my friends I speak about mythicism but they're not scholars either so they wouldn't know how to frame the argument.

My main problem with people like Abe is the refusal to even consider the possibility. It may turn out in future that there will be enough clear evidence to prove the existence of someone like Jesus, or another candidate like Huller's Marcus Agrippa or some other as yet unidentified person. Or not.

I respect your knowledge aa, but making definitive assertions about anything in life seems less and less reasonable to me as I get older. Doubt is a good thing.

Toto

sweetpea7:

You started this thread with a reasonable question, but I doubt that you realized what you would get. Many of the posts in this thread are picking up on disagreements that have been going on for years.

There have been people from academia who have posted here. We know that graduate students are warned off the subject of mythicism, and that challenging the existence of Jesus is just out of bounds. Part of the problem has been that there are some mythicist theories that are quite flakely, and are not credible. I suspect that this may change, but it will take time.

But part of the problem is resistance from Christian believers, who are influential in the field. There are secular scholars who have no loyalty to Christian ideas, but they must still operate in this political arena. For some reason, it is acceptable for Christians to contemplate the idea that the gospels are 90 percent myth, but not 100 percent myth. It is acceptable for Christians to consider the idea that only 4 or 7 of the letters attributed to Paul are genuine, but not that all of them can be dated to the second century.

It is too simple to claim that scholars are paid to assume that there is a historical Jesus or a historical Paul, but it is clear that a young scholar who challenged the existence of a historical Jesus or a historical Paul would need to have an independent source of income. You can look at the recent work that young scholars are doing, and it seems to focus on politically safe, careful examination of narrow literary or linguistic questions, without asking any of the big questions.

I will respect your wishes on this thread. Has it answered your questions? Is it too overwhelming? Are they too many digressions?

aa5874

Well, it may turn out that a man found guilty of crime was innocent. People can only make conclusions on the evidence existing NOW not evidence in the future.

My problem with ApostateAbe is that he has no credible sources of antiquity for the HJ theory and has even admitted that the NT is not a reliable historical source but still uses the very discredited source for HJ.

The HJ theory is extremely weak yet ApostateAbe continues to INVENT his own facts and have re-written the Jesus story from his imagination using the very unreliable NT and tells people he has the BEST explanation.

I find this to be totally unacceptable and unreasonable.

Did I NOT tell you that I am simply developing a theory based on the existing evidence from antiquity?

My theory will always be in line with the existing evidence that we have existing NOW.

A verdict is based on the EXISTING evidence not on future evidence.

My verdict now is that Jesus was a myth fable like Marcion's myth fable of the Phantom.

And, just like any verdict it can be overturned ONLY when credible evidence to contradict has been found.

HJers have NOTHING right now so the verdict stands.

Based on the abundance of EXISTING evidence from antiquity, Jesus was a myth fable of antiquity that was BELIEVED by Christians just like Christians BELIEVED the Phantom was a figure of history even without birth and flesh and worshiped the Phantom as the Son of God.

jgoodguy

Very good points. This is at the moment a Christian nation. Stats indicate that Christianity will be a minority religion about 2030. Sometime around then, I expect the HJ to pass into history as the standard mainline view. Not that long ago, the Gospel Jesus was the standard mainline view. Anyone proposing the HJ was like the JM proponents today. I participated online with a email group that fought with folks that believed in the inerrancy of the Bible. It was a hot topic until perhaps 5 years ago. Lots of folks dropping by to teach us skeptics a thing or two, but it gradually dropped off and inerrancy is gradually going into the dustbin of history.

50 years from now, it is likely that Christianity will be regarded as a myth entirely. It may be a religion, perhaps a major one still. The irony is that if the JMers are correct, there is reason for Christianity to continue with a mythical Jesus and cosmic Christ. After all they say it started with one.

judge

We do?
How do you know.
As usual I'll ask if you have evidence to support this?

judge

But is this because of bias or because the theories so far dont stack up scholastically?

Toto

As I said, members of this forum have been informed of this personally, and if we hadn't been, we could just read the blog of Professor James McGrath. If you have contrary evidence, please state it.

jgoodguy

I'll buy into the bias theory.

Toto

There are academics with all sorts of off beat theories that do not stack up, but it hasn't stopped them. Some of them even believe that Jesus rose from the dead.