Chris Weimer

This is how I know that you're only here for polemic. "Christ" had quotation marks for a reason - it didn't mean that an actual Christ had to be born and lived once for him to exist. It means that without "Christ", as a concept, there would be no Christianity. Without "Confucius", there would be no Confucianism. Without "Buddha", no Buddhism. Without "Mithras", no Mithraism. Without the "Olympians", no Olympic religion. Real or not, the concepts exist.

So when Hex said that Jesus was insignificant, perhaps the person who actually existed named Yeshua bar Yosef whom the gospels use as a model was unimportant, that he was exalted by Paul and other early Christians and thus had a powerful effect on this culture (and to this day a powerful effect on the whole world) means that his character still had an effect.

If there was no Jesus Christ, if Paul never mentioned a Jesus Christ, if neither Ignatius, nor Irenaeus, nor Tertullian, nor Justin Martyr, nor Eusebius, nor Augustine, nor Jerome, nor Hilary, nor Thomas Aquinas, nor anyone ever mentioned a Jesus Christ, do you think there'd be Christians?

Of course not.

When did I say anything about an historical Christ?

~M~

1. Does it need to be proof?
2. What would it take to prove it?



btw, in the religions you mentioned, is there figure a keystone?

Sparrow

That's just a tautology. As such it's not very helpful to propagate historical accuracy. Many lazy laymen will accept that because Christianity exists, that there must not only have been a living person at the root, but that all the stories in the canonical scripture are thus histories.

Per the OP, that is a 'reasonable' position for the layman, but it isn't evidence of much use of reason.

The lazy layman, perhaps with the reasoning skills of a Paris Hilton, can justifiably believe in a wide variety of historical Jesi. At some point they will be told that all they have to do is believe and they get all the bonus prizes (living forever, big house in the sky, etc). That settled, it's back to the party or shopping.

A layman such as myself, with more than a passing interest in the topic, yet still short of the motivation to learn a couple dead languages, has to rely on forums like this, popular books and articles and the like. The fact that I can read responses from real historians here is invaluable. But I still need to know their process and assumptions. How many of these scholars could write thrity pages on the adulteress pericope yet have not examined whether or not a historical person was the original preacher?

As a somewhat more informed (than the average) layman, I find it surprising that historical scholars do not bother to correct the misconceptions popular among the religious faithful. Most not only accept a physical Christ, but 'know' he was born Dec 25, 1 BC. They 'know' all four gospels were written less than fifty years after that and that we have thousands of complete copies of the original draft, identical to the current KJV.

From what I've learned here and in limited readings, I cannot fathom how we can claim to have any idea what the original texts contained or when they were written. (I did mention that I was a layman, right?) I cannot come up with an explanation, supportive to Christianity, as to why there is no realistic extra-biblical first century record of the amazing Jesus. Yet you scholars and scholars-in-training wonder why we might grasp onto Jesus as a myth being the most likely explanation for why we have the Christianity we have.

I'm certain there is some myth in the story. I'm not certain there's any history.

Hex

Why? If there was a Gnostic-style Jesus that only existed as parable to explain a specific set of values and actions, you could get the stories without a physical embodied Jesus. And after a hundred or more years after the guys was to have been supposed to have died, who would know the difference?

Paul, for instance, -never- met an embodied Jesus, yet became one of the biggest driving forces in shaping what we see as Christianity. Was the body then that important? :huh:

So why bother with your OP question if you've already reasoned that the question is unimportant?

Toto

Give me a break. I'm here because I'm a moderator.

That was a cleverly hidden meaning. "Christ" could have been in quotation marks for a number of reasons - the guy was named Jesus or something, and was only known later as Christ.

That is what this thread is about.

Are you saying here that the actual existence of a historical Jesus is not necessary to explain Christianity and all of its scripture? I would agree with that.

Chris Weimer

I have no pity for lazy laymen. For the rest, I would hope they wouldn't be so dumb as to only take my one post out of context with everything else I've said.

A subtle ad hom, but insulting nonetheless. Why don't you just go out and call ~M~ as stupid as Paris Hilton.

Now you have. And would these same lazy laymen also use so poor reasoning skills as to think that the plural of Jesus is Jesi?

Well, I sympathize about the lack of critical thinking skills, but jeez, let's all spend our lives investigating Intelligent Design, because if we just listen to the scientists about evolution, then we're just as stupid as Paris Hilton.

Then you too must not have good critical thinking skills. I mean, why in the world would you rely on an atheist propaganda machine to generate solid and unbiased information about what did and didn't happen in 1st century CE in Galilee and Judea?

Real historians here? I can count on my hands everyone here who has open and worthwhile credentials.

Not everybody is interested in every field. Some are probably more interested in textual criticism than whether Jesus actually existed. I'm far more interested in what the Gospel of Matthew says, it's structure, etc... than the quest for the historical Jesus, although the two are intertwined, if my hunch is correct.

Are you joking? Every year a new book comes out correcting popular misconceptions. After a while, we do get tired of trying to correct the masses when all they do is fight off academia. How many people still buy into the Da Vinci mess? Probably not so many where it was actively discussed, but I do see a number of them.


I don't know anyone who thinks that Jesus Christ was born on Dec. 25th 1 BC. Perhaps I'm not hanging around stupid enough people. But more to the point, there are scores of even popular books aimed at informing the average layman. If they don't take their time to become familiar, no one can force it on them.

That's because you probably have limited training in the breadth of world literature and religions. One steeped in cultural anthropology begin to see more of the realistic side of things.

What is myth? What is history? How do you differentiate? If you can't even answer that question for yourself, then you probably should listen to scholars.

Chris Weimer

But that was not what the derailed conversation within this thread was about. Pay attention.

Of course you should! It's not unobvious. But without any Christ at all, real or imagined, then there wouldn't be "Christianity". As simple as that.

Sparrow

I've read a great deal of what you've written here over the past few years. Also Gibson, Spin, Kirby, Vorkosigan, Pearse and many others. My apologies to you if you somehow thought my criticism of your tautology paints everything else you've contributed with the same brush. Apparently you thought my little rant was directed to wards you instead of the stupid people I think we both have no pity for.

But your response illustrates one of my concerns with investigating a text. You read ad homs and insults into my text where there was none. Actually there was one regarding Paris Hilton, but not to you nor ~M~. What biases or assumptions do you bring to your reading of a given text? How do you mitigate them?


I hope I'm detecting sarcasm here, but I'm not sure.


I don't think I said this was the only place I got information, but it is a place where there are some real historians. Are there any over at RaptureReady?


No I'm not joking, Real laymen don't read those books. They get their information from their pastors, 700 Club and maybe the religion section of the newspaper. They think that Falwell, Strobel and McDowell are scholars. They've never heard of Ehrman.



You're probably not hanging around the stupid people, but they exist anyway. Seen on a sign at the local mega-church last December: 'Happy 2006th Birthday Jesus!'. These are the same ones that are shocked to discover that Jesus didn't speak English.

History, to me, is what happened that can be established through evidence after the biases and assumptions are filtered out. Myth cannot be established or verified by evidence. I find it very difficult to separate the history from the myth of the gospel stories. I can see how an explanation based on it being pure fiction could work. I can see that there could be a real person at the center, later embellished. I cannot see an explanation where everything in the gospels is 100% historical; That conflicts with my perception of reality too much. In the end I'm only trying to figure out whether Jesus is as real as Harry Potter or as Harry Truman, in approximately the same way as one looks at someone else's auto accident. I'm just glad I wasn't involved. I know I'm not a serious enough historian for you, but ask yourself why you're here if all you want to do is talk with other historians who meet your elite criteria.

Chris Weimer

You've got yourself a good list here.

No, I didn't say that. Look at what you said again:

If we go back to Hex's original post, we find:

You and Toto both seemed oblivious to the little sub-conversation that was taking place. ~M~ said that Jesus, mythical or real, had an impact on our society. Hex said that no, it was not Christ, but Christians. I explained that without Christ, there would be no Christians.

Good exegetical reading means you take the passage in context and read it as a whole. My statement in no way should affect how lazy people will think of the historical Jesus, because it has no bearing on the historical Jesus. It has bearing on the influence of Jesus.

Orson Welles once did a dramatic reading of The War of the Worlds over the radio. Now, the alien invasion was not real, but the influence indeed was felt.

No, I said I thought it was directed at ~M~. Your words:

The position is 'reasonable' (implying something other than reasonable, or some sort of qualifier to be attached to reasonable), but the position means that there isn't much evidence for the layman using reason, by implication, the opening poster, confessing to be a layman in this respect, isn't using reason. That same layman is called lazy (or perhaps only lazy laymen here) and compared to Paris Hilton. The meaning is not entirely clear, but the general implication is.

So no, I don't think you meant that towards me, I think you meant that towards ~M~, and now are trying to be more civil about it. That's all fine with me - backtrack to emend your errors. That's better than some here who rant and rave ignorantly, and then when their ignorance is called out, they continue to rant and rave, oblivious to their incompentency in understanding their ignorance.

By comparing the "lazy" (which is an insult, btw) layman to Paris Hilton's stupidity, you've not only called Paris Hilton stupid, but the layman stupid as well.

As far as my own biases are concerned, I try to remain neutral, let others seek out my biases for me, and usually dismiss the ones I know to be false. How many times I've had the charge of being Christian! Not all believe me to be a theist, because I accept the existence of an historical Jesus, but a thorough look at all my posts in every forum in context thoroughly defeats that idea. I really don't know what sort of biases I might carry. I suppose I'm biased towards the conservative approach of historical reconstruction, and usually scoff at the most unusual of suggestions (whether a particularly unique emendation in Catullus or that Jesus was conceived of as having been born, raised, and killed on an heavenly plane). I do know that I'm biased against the miraculous - I require extraordinary evidence before I accept that the supernatural actually happened. I tend to reinterpret "miracles" to fit natural data - including fraudulent reportings, misreportings, and hallucinations.

What other biases do I have? Please bear in mind that the usual definition of bias is a positive one, not a negative one, e.g. not believing in something isn't a bias.


Depends on where you're placing the emphasis? I was sarcastically comparing your remarks to IDiots who complain that Intelligent Design and Creationism aren't receiving enough scholarly attention from scientists. Well no shit! Look at the route they took! In pulpits and in courts to push their agenda. No creationist articles appear in reputable, scholarly journals these days.

And the change? It happened rather quickly. Remember that the idea that Jesus was a myth happened around the same time that Darwin championed evolution.

I seriously, seriously doubt there are any historians at Rapture Ready. That place is a sinkhole. But then again, you've not moved up too much when you come here.

Earlier you said:

More backpedaling. Either historical scholars do not bother to correct the misconceptions popular among the religious faithful, or they do, but "real" laymen don't read those books. I wouldn't even bother to argue against the latter, but when you indicted historical scholars, you seriously "misspoke".

Are they many?

That simply cannot happen as human beings. Everyone has their own biases, honest enough to admit it or not. History is what is recorded, what we can reconstruct, and what actually happened. The first we know, being obvious; the second we hypothesize about; but the latter we may never actually know. I'm ok with that.

What do you mean?

Just because you do doesn't mean that trained experts do as well.

"Pure fiction" is somewhat of an anachronism.

Yes - this is the standard view.

Nor can most scholars - even Christian ones.

It's not all I want to do. I like to go swimming, and drinking at the local bar, and many other things as well. The answer changes on how cynical of a mood I am in - some days it is to keep in check the outrageous statements of people who should know better, other days it is because I'm actually interested in what is being said, other days it is because people I have a high opinion of are discussing things here (remember that list you first produced?).

RalphyS

I wanna jump on this ship for a moment, because I'm interested too.

I would also consider myself a layman, though not a Paris Hilton-type ignoramus, there is a difference, I believe.

I do read the BC&H discussions from time to time, but often I have to quit, because I do not understand the details talked about, or I simply do not wish to engage because of time reasons or otherwise in such detail.

I do not want to read book after book about the question and therefore I find this forum very useful, but as stated often too complicated and fixed on details.

I do not believe in the Jesus-figure as a messiah, like described in the gospels, but my opinion on if there was a preacher called Jesus or not is not a set one, although I do tend to believe that the mythicists have some good points.

Basically my question is, as there is reasonably little evidence for a historic Jesus-like preacher in historic texts, why is the JM not more common among non-believers. I understand that Christian scholars believe in the HJ, but what is the majority opinion among non-Christian scholars and why?

And please do not go into too much detail, which I know is not easy if you do possess the detailed knowledge.

As M said, this is not an essential question for me, but I like to find some answers that I can understand.