Doug Shaver

I do not know. You're making me guess.

I'll try this rewrite: "The way I see it, almost all stories that are not true have parts that are true." Is that the point you're trying to make?

ApostateAbe

That is my meaning, though it isn't the final point. I'll copy, paste and indent that old post.

I think that is a good question. I do not judge the parts of the gospels as either truth or not based on what I want, or at least I try not to. Wishful thinking really is the very common and normal way to think about the topics in this subject, but minimizing the influence of wishful thinking is one of my central goals. Wishful thinking is easy to do in this subject, because ancient history really is difficult, almost ALL sources are ambiguous and unreliable, it is all about a set of cultures far removed from our own world, and the subject has profound influence over the entire society. Every wishful thinker has plenty of opportunity to shape their conclusions about the origins of Christianity according to his or her own wishes and pre-existing beliefs. Non-religious or anti-religious people are certainly no exception.

That isn't to say that probable conclusions can not possibly be found. The New Testament is based on myths, and myths follow patterns. The way I see it, almost all legends have at least some bits of truth in them. Even most fictions have some bits of reality--towns, celebrities, music, and other cultural background information. There are reliable ways to tease out the truth from the myths. For example, when two completely different myths telling two completely different tall tales name the same nuclear power plant, then odds are strong that the nuclear power plant actually exists or existed.

That is the criterion of multiple attestation. There is a set of criteria specifically appropriate for myths that are commonly used in critical New Testament scholarship. Other such criteria include the criterion of plausibility, the criterion of earlier is better, and the criterion of dissimilarity.

I like to think and argue in terms of a more generalized methodology--Argument to the Best Explanation--that would incorporate those specific criteria. The general criteria are explanatory power, explanatory scope, plausibility, less ad hoc, and disconfirmed by fewer accepted beliefs.

Doug Shaver

In general, I prefer to use the same terminology everyone else uses. Your penchant for coining new labels for old ideas makes it difficult to know what you mean.

ApostateAbe

A complaint that is much more common about my terminology is that mythicists take offense at it. I think I was perfectly understandable, especially in the context of this thread, but I propose that any language that closely associates those two hypotheses (Jesus-mythicism and Nazareth-mythicism) makes for something offensive to mythicists, because the perception of a close association seems to speak negatively of mythicist thought. They want to believe that both hypotheses are reasonable even when they stand alone from each other. In observable actuality, of course, almost nobody would have any serious doubt about the existence of Nazareth at the alleged time of Jesus if such people were not also strongly bent to disbelieve in the existence of Jesus.

Doug Shaver

Sometimes they can. Sometimes they cannot. The gospels and other early Christian writings do constitute multiple attestation, but they are not independent attestation. There was clearly only one original source for the "of Nazareth" meme, even if we can no longer identify it.

The gospels mention Jerusalem several times, but nobody is claiming it didn't exist during the first century. The reason, which ought to be obvious, is that we have plenty of independent evidence. If the gospels had never been written, we would still know that Jerusalem existed in the first century. That raises the question: If the gospels had never been written, would we have any reason to suspect the existence of a Galilean village called Nazareth during the first century?

Doug Shaver

Oh, you poor, persecuted fellow. You try to be terminologically innovative, and all you get for your creative effort is accusations that you're both offensive and obscurantist.

I can deal with negativity when it's true. In this case it's false.

There is plenty of room for debate about how reasonable they are. It is a fact that each stands alone. The historical existence of Jesus does not depend on the first-century existence of Nazareth, nor vice versa.

I hope you read the MSDS for that poison you're putting into the well.

dog-on

ApostateAbe

In that thought experiment, probably the only reason we would have for believing that Nazareth existed in the first century is by projecting backward from archaeological evidence from the 2nd/3rd/4th centuries. The tendency of history is to believe that a settlement existed sometime before the earliest archaeological evidence, but it would most certainly be just a "maybe." The references in the gospels makes a big difference, one way or the other. The most probable explanation for the set of evidence is that the authors of the gospels knew of a town of Nazareth in Galilee where Jesus was reputedly raised. We have many examples of small towns that are omitted in the historical texts. It is not probable that the town was founded afterward. We simply do not have any comparable examples of such a thing in history.

Toto

I don't know of any reputable historians who operate that way.

You have just taken your preferred explanation and slapped the word "probable" on it. What is improbable about Christians reading about a mythical Nazareth and mistaking it for a real city, and going to Galilee and "finding" it?

ApostateAbe

Huh. How do you think they would operate? By believing it is probable that a town began existing at exactly the same date as the earliest archaeological evidence? We can put this to the test, Toto. I challenge you to name for me three people who you take to be reputable historians or archaeologists, and I will ask each of them about it in an email. You can compose the question for me.
Because no similar thing has ever happened in history as far as we know.