jjramsey

The "evidence" that I've seen of Dionysus being crucified is Freke & Gandy misportraying a depiction of a wooden idol of Dionysus on a vase. Quoting myself from SkepticWiki:

I suspect that the depiction of wine-drinking on the vase is the source for the claim "The depiction on a Greek vase from the 5th century B.C.E. even shows a communion being prepared."

Myrrha was no virgin. She had incest with her dad and conceived Adonis. IIRC, Adonis was identified with Tammuz.

spamandham

Certainly there could have been, but if there was, I don't think we know ANYTHING about him, including when or where he lived. The prototype could just as easily be King Tut, the Essene Teacher of Righteousness, Julius Caesar, or even the Buhdda. Yet, it is almost universally assumed the prototype was a first century itinerate preacher.

spamandham

I don't want to get bogged down in whether Jospehus' mention of Jesus was added later or not, as it isn't relevant to the discussion really, simply because even if it's legitimate, it merely proves the existence of Christianity in the first century. It provides no weight at all to the case for a historical Jesus.

Peter may be mythical or not. That also isn't relevant I think.

I don't view Paul's vision as a lie. It sounds too much like temporal lobe epilepsy. Paul may have told a fib here and there in his letters, but it seems clear he really believed this stuff.

I see Paul as likely having heard about the Christ concept from someone else, and then using the Logos process to 'discover the mystery', then seeing himself as THE authority as a result. Paul's Christ would seem to be someone from ancient times (by his standards), or mystical.

spamandham

I don't agree that the timeline is narrow, or that it really matters even if it was. There were numerous Christian movements even at the time Paul wrote. After all, that's why he was writing in the first place. Some of these movements may have believed in a historical Jesus even if Paul didn't.

20 years is more than enough time for the evolution of a myth. Just look at the effect Tim LeHaye has had on Christian culture in less time than that, and we live in a time of skepticism and easily searchable information.

The first century Hellenistci Greece was particularly suited to the generation of myths and legends.

Malachi151

My concern is with Paul's mention that he met James and Peter.

Solo

I don't think that is right or internally consistent. The historical existence of Jesus is not assumed but based on a series of religious texts which are locatable in time somehwere late in the first or second century C.E. Even though the texts are not a historical treatise, but a declaration of religious sentiment, they nonetheless assert the existence of person identified as Jesus of Nazareth.

The bare fact of this person's existence cannot be disputed merely by rejecting a set of beliefs held about him. Such methodology does not offset the evidentiary weight of the texts. Therefore, even if I do not accept the texts as historically reliable, as to the chronicling and depiction of any individual event around Jesus, I do not accept that the case is thereby made for his non-existence, or even that the existence and non-existence would exercise Jean Buridan's ass.

Jiri

Amaleq13

Whether it is clear to you or not, I stand by my response to the OP question. IMO, secular scholars accept the existence of an historical Jesus because they consider it to be the most parsimonious explanation for the texts and related religious movement(s). This seems to me to be rather obviously true and I find it ridiculous to suggest that any theory of an entirely mythical Jesus is the less complicated explanation and I found it ridiculous even when I favored it. IOW, I accepted that it required more assumptions even as I accepted it as the better explanation. By no honest stretch of the imagination can a theory like Earl Doherty's be described as less complicated than the notion of a man becoming mythologized to the point where all we have is the myth. That said, less complicated does not always equal correct and more complicated does not always equal false.

To suggest that the latter does not also entail a similar number of equally unanswered questions is clearly false. The state of the evidence is such that unanswered questions, regardless of the framework one applies to interpret it, are inevitable and numerous.

Clivedurdle

Are we or are we not agreed that an hj, if there were one, is not the one recounted in the gospels? We are then left with sifting through the historical residue, leading to a whole series of possible jesi, none of which are the son of god, co-eternal etc etc etc.

The next problem is how do we explain this superstitio turned religio?

A mix of gnosticism, politics, Paul having visions does seem more likely.

spin

You tend to use this questionable phrase "Jesus of Nazareth" a lot, but at what moment in the narrative tradition did it come into existence? The Pauline corpus, apparently the oldest literature we have, doesn't acknowledge it. The earliest church fathers don't betray knowledge. The gospel of Mark has it later in the narrative tradition, knowing nazarhnos and when it does acknowledge Nazareth, it is in a passage paralleled by Matt which doesn't acknowledge it. (If you are interested in the subject of Nazareth, the archives have quite a lot.)

The only historical datum provided by GJn is a reference to John the Baptist. GMk adds Herod Antipas and the trope about the fall of the temple. The other gospels are later developments on GMk. Their additions are in conflict with one another on a number of occasions, suggesting that there is no necessary connection with a reality beyond tradition.

This is the stuff we have. We don't know when they were written or by whom. We don't know the exact context in which they were written, although GMk evinces a Latin language subcontext.

A historian needs to show that the literary sources s/he employs have some relationship with history. One cannot supply literary traditions unsupported by the historical framework already constructed from the past through archaeology, epigraphy and the interplay with literary sources whose historical content has been frequently demonstrated.

The repetition of the basic GMk source eliminates GMt and GLk as separate attestations. GJn betrays almost no signs of historically useful material, ie its content cannot be sufficiently supported by the history we have established (through archaeology, epigraphy and tested other literary sources).

With the sources you have, I can't see how you can separate the quality of information about Jesus of Nazareth from that of Paul Bunyon, the giant lumberjack.

You need to do a lot more work to bring the christian literature into a working context that could allow you to claim a reality behind the traditional figure.

This is not history, Solo. You don't start by assuming existence based on unproven literary sources, unless you want to include Trimalchio from the Satyricon or Ebion from early church writers. You cannot claim someone is historical just because they are referred to in literature. Despite the fact that the name Ebionite for the sect was derived from the Hebrew )BYWN, early church fathers invented a figure called Ebion who was the founder of the movement. Tertullian knew of him. By the time of Epiphanius he even had a birthplace and a full life. If I were to take your approach, you'd have to show me that Ebion didn't exist. That's not history. One has to make a substantive case for the existence of figures found in untested sources.

When you can show that the texts -- which you are trying to claim have historical content -- have historical merit through archaeology, epigraphy and tested other literary sources, then you may be able to get past tradition into history. Having looked at the sources, I don't think you can, but then when you can make a reasoned case, I will happily listen.

I don't know your last reference here, but the basic thesis is unrelated to history.


spin

lpetrich

(Me earlier: None of that absolutely rules out the existence of some historical prototype; there could have been a historical Jesus Christ who was much like the self-styled prophets that Josephus had described: John the Baptizer, Theudas, "the Egyptian", etc.)
But who do you think the Jesus Christ of the Gospels more closely resembles? The gentlemen I mentioned or the gentlemen you mentioned?

Richard Carrier has written Kooks and Quacks of the Roman Empire: A Look into the World of the Gospels; he describes:
And it seems to me that a historical Jesus Christ would have been much like them.