PhilosopherJay

I will argue that the evidence for the existence of Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster, is much better than any evidence for the existence of Jesus.

The evidence for Nessie:

Eyewitness accounts: At least 110 dating back to Saint Columbia in the sixth century. In 1933 alone, 25 people claimed to have seen him. Many of the witnesses were outstanding and upright citizens.

Photographs - dozens
film and videos - 27 dating from 1933 to 1992.
sonar encounters - 16 dating back from 1954 to 1972.
Histories - dozens of contemporary book and magazine articles.
100's of mentions in contemporary literature.

The evidence for Jesus:

Eyewitnesses - 0
Photographs - 0
film and videos - 0
sonar - 0
Histories - 0 contemporary, one written 275 years after he supposedly lived by a Bishop, not a professional historian.
diverse, but inconsistent references in literature dated mainly to the Second century

Unfortunately, with the use of submarines, better sonar and hundreds of underwater cameras the belief in Nessie has pretty well evaporated over the last decade. At least it has among serious scientists and observers. There are still tens of thousands of Pilgrims who travel to Loch Ness every year with the hope of seeing the creature. (information from Legend of Nessie, http://www.nessie.co.uk/htm/the_evidence/drawings.html, and wikipedia et al.) Apparently all the evidence that convinced millions of people that Nessie was alive came from from people's imagination and some clever and not so clever hoaxers.

Warnly

Jay Raskin

true story

The Galileans, as a native fishing people, would've had the most advanced sonar equipment available at the time. I find it highly suspicious that they detected nothing beneath that lake. It can't be attributed to Jesus walking on, and not under, the water, since the gospels all agree he only did that trick occasionally.

mountainman

Hi Philosopher Jay,

This is an intriguing argument. Evidence for Nessie may yet be produced. The latest evidence produced for Jesus is being contested by the Israeli Police Dept as we speak.


Also .....

earliest c14 - between 220 and 340 CE
figurines - 0
trinkets - 0
church art - 0
church-house art - 0
house-church art - 1 (Dura-Europos-Yale)
hand-written letters - 1 (agbar)
grafitti - 1 (alexandros)
inscriptions - maybe a dozen, all ambiguous
coins - 4th century
crosses - helena
nails - ditto
archaeological relics - 0


Some of the above is especially convincing evidence for Jesus. I think the agbar letter for example is a particularly compelling piece of evidence in assessing Jesus's historicity.

But still I think you're right in arguing that the evidence for Nessie is better than (or exceeds) all this evidence for the historicity Jesus Lake-Walker story. Comparing the relative historicity of Jesus and Apollonius of Tyana resulted in Apollonius being of greater historicity. To Apollonius, we may now add Nessie.

Best wishes



Pete

Solo

Hi Jay,
years back on a different board I advanced a theory - tongue somewhat in cheek but not totally - that, the Jesus lore owes its origin to food poisoning, specifically fish food, which was arriving at major markets, like Jerusalem, Antioch, Rome - all landlocked and away from production areas - unrefrigerated and unsalted. The consumed fish would often contain toxic levels of bacteria, which in the scombroid fishes, causes poisoning when the histamine levels reach a critical point. Among the scombroid type of fish, very popular in the areas where Christianity first made inroads is tilapia, known also,- yes - as St.Peter's fish.

Now, the interesting part - histamine is known to have psychoactive effects, as it is a neuromodulator affecting sleep cycle. So, if this property was known, and poisoned people became sleepless and hallucinating, we get a strange new twist on Jesus promising his first disciples to become fishers of men, ichthys and resurrected Jesus' eating fish in Lk 24:43. Like I said, I am treading this lightly, but I think it is a better intoxication theory than Allegro's mushrooms. At any rate it's one way to get the spirit out of the water.

Best,
Jiri

PhilosopherJay

Hi true story,

Sonar apparently can be mistaken. Some have suggested that a Sturgeon (usually 8-12 feet long, but can be up to 18 feet) could have caused the sonar readings that were (mis)taken for Nessie.

Fishermen are well known to make up or exaggerate the size or number of fish they catch.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Pete,

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for evidence of either to be produced.

Thanks for the additional bits of "evidence".

There is apparently a field called cryptozoology which investigates claims about creatures that may or may not be new species. They have developed ways of determining if sightings of such creatures are real or not. They have claimed Nessie for their own field of investigation..

Perhaps we need a field called cryptoanthropology which can do the same for Jesus.

Warmly, Jay
On April 21, 1943 the London Daily Mail published a photograph supposedly taken by Dr. Robert Kenneth Wilson, a London gynecologist, of what appeared to be the Loch's most famous inhabitant coming up for a quick look around. For over 60 years, most people pointed to this as definitive proof that such a creature in fact did exist. However in 1992 a man named Christian Spurling made a startling confession. According to Spurling, the photo was a hoax concocted by his step-father, Marmaduke Wetherell, who was a big-game hunter contracted by the Daily Mail to find evidence of the monster. When he failed to do so, the paper fired him. He extracted his revenge by creating a "serpent" out of a toy submarine, placing a model of a head over the conning tower.



The model was then launched in the loch and the photo was snapped. By Spurling's account, Wetherell persuaded Dr. Wilson to take credit for the shot. Perhaps fearing ridicule, Wilson never admitted to his part in the hoax. Despite this revelation, there are many Nessie believers, many of them respected scientists and journalists, who argue the admission is sour grapes and that it is no reason to discount other reports of the existence of the creature. ( from Lake Monsters Myths and Legends)

PhilosopherJay

Hi Solo,

Interesting theory.

I saw a documentary on television a few years ago about a ship caught in the Arctic Ice in the 1800's. All aboard died. Apparently they turned to murder and cannibalism before they died. As I recall the most probable theory to explain the behavior is that the led in the cans of meat had seeped into the meat that they ate and had driven them insane.

I'm not sure if there's any connection.

Warmly,

Jay Raskin

mountainman

Hi Philosopher Jay,

The WIKI article on the Cryptozoology is quite revealing, and its relationship to the field of Zoology reminds me of the relationship between the two fields of Biblical History and Ancient History.


We might paraphrase the above to say that Biblical History is not a recognized branch of Ancient History or a discipline of science.[1] It is an example of pseudoscience because it relies heavily upon anecdotal evidence, stories and alleged sightings. Examples of pseudo-logical criteria, such as the "Criterion of Embarrassement", etc, etc, etc, abound at the foundations of "Biblical Scholarship".

Best wishes


Pete

aa5874

The earliest Jesus stories, the Short-ending gMark DESTROYS your theory.

The supposed disciples of Jesus showed NO signs of food poisoning when he was ARRESTED.


1. Judas BETRAYED Jesus.

2. The disciples RAN Away and abandoned Jesus.

3. Peter DENIED ever knowing Jesus.

4. The Visitors to the EMPTY Tomb FLED DUMBSTRUCK and told NO one that a white clothes man claimed Jesus was Risen.

The supposed disciples and visitors were well Aware that their LIVES were in jeopardy if they Publicly admitted that Jesus was Christ and the Son of the Blessed.

It wasn't ROTTEN Fish. It was the INVENTORS who fabricated a FISHY story.

mountainman

So who were the INVENTORS and what evidence supports this identification of the INVENTORS? We have this data thanks to Philosopher Jay's research on the reconstruction of the history of the invention of the Loch Ness Monster, but I dont seem to be able to find of WIKI who was ultimately responsible for the invention of the Codex Vaticanus for example.