Camio

Hi,

In a previous post, I was wondering why Earl Doherty, in his Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case, didn’t address the critique made by Charles Guignebert in his book Jesus, published in 1933 (first French edition). Perhaps he deemed those 6 pages or so were not worth mentioning, or that he had already addressed the main points through his other critiques, or whatever. In France anyway, the mythicist debate is considered “case closed” by scholars since Guignebert’s works. That’s why I thought it would be useful, for informative reason at least, to post his main arguments on this board. I know Guignebert’s Jesus was translated into English, but it doesn’t seem that easy to get a hold on.

NB: Sorry for the grammatical mistakes in the translations of the excerpts...

Guignebert starts his first chapter “the historical existence of Jesus” by a summary of the mythicist case since Dupuis and Volney, mentionning Bruno Bauer and his followers, Jensen, Kalthoff, Robertson, Smith and Drews. He then proceeds to criticize their specific theses. The main problem, he says, is that they surmise a lot without any substantial elements to back up their hypotheses. Couchoud, for example,

Then comes his overview of the mythicist position:

Brief personal comment : even if some of these questions may appear outdated, I think it could be a good exercise for any myther to answer this flow of interrogation marks.

Guignebert goes on:

Then comes a refutation that Earl Doherty already addressed for sure in his Response to Goguel:

We then move to Paul:

This sounds very clear cut, maybe too much.

Well, already debated ad nauseam by Earl Doherty I guess.

I particularly enjoy this one because, if I remember well, ED used the same passages to argue the exact opposite in his Argument from silence article!

Another sociological consideration which maybe would require to be closely examined (if not already done).

I guess this is not disputed by mythicists today.

And the conclusion:

Toto

From the introductory paragraphs of Guignebert's Jesus that I could read for free from questia, I gather that Guignebert starts off with the assumption that someone was the inspiration for Christianity, and that it was a person named Jesus, and any mythicist argument has to provide a better explanation. I see no reason to assume this, or to assume that arguing against the various mythicist theories prevalent in 1933 is a positive argument for a historical Jesus.

For example: Jesus-mythicists are often also Peter-mythicists. I don't see how this supports a historical Jesus, unless you are trying to explain Christianity by a historical Peter.

Then we have:

I don't understand this at all. Paul did regard Jesus as a god, or at least as a divine mediator between god and man. The "fake humanity" is part of the mythmaking. Some mythicists assume that the orthodox church invented a historical Jesus to bolster their authority through the apostolic succession, but where does Paul produce an analogous speech? Paul does not quote Jesus, and in any case the later gospel writers appear to have placed a lot of commonplaces into Jesus' mouth, some of which might also be found in Paul's letters.

Early Christianity appears to have associated itself with Judaism because of its status as an ancient, legal religion in the Roman empire.

We don't know a lot about the mystery religions, so there might have been.

This sounds like the thoroughly discredited argument from embarrassment, plus the equally discredited idea that those ancients were too simple to invent a religion. I won't go over all of that here.

We don't know that those who elaborated the legend put their hero during their own time. Paul does not place Jesus at any identifiable time in history. The later gospels were written much later - after the destruction of the Temple - and placed Jesus at an earlier time, during the governorship of Pilate. This is one of Doherty's main points, and the historicists have no satisfying answer to the question of why there are no contemporary records of Jesus.

More arguments from embarrassment.

I don't see anything new in the rest of the argument.

Ideologist

Why would there be any contemporary records of Jesus? He was certainly notable to some people, but given the complete dearth of records from that period and the relative obscurity of Christianity during the time of the Apostles, it seems extremely unlikely that any records would be around.

Toto

There isn't a complete dearth of records, and Christians were likely to preserve or copy or at least mention any records that existed. But 4th century Christians were reduced to manufacturing relics and forging documents about him.

Camio

Yes, that's it in a nutshell. Except that Guignebert acknowledges that the name itself is not so sure. He keeps using "Jesus" for convenience.

Thanks for your comments.

Jeff.

Ideologist

I forgot the "almost;" there are a handful.

Certainly, it would have been nice had they done so. But we must remember; the Church at the height of its power and ability to preserve manuscripts still regularly lost works from neglect. Is it any wonder that in the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and even 4th centuries, when the Church was persecuted and out of power, it would be unable to regularly preserve obscure Roman documents of questionable worth over the still fragmentarily preserved works of the Church Fathers?

Ben C Smith

In whose contemporary writings that have been preserved would you expect a mention of Jesus? Philo?

Ben.

Johann_Kaspar

Completely stupid statement, ignoring the works of several French writers of the 20th century. Go, do your homework instead of misrepresenting the French authors.

Toto

Possibly Philo. I would expect a mention of Christianity or early Christians in Josephus that was not so clearly forged.

And if Jesus had existed in the time frame described by the gospels, I would expect at least one follower or observer to have written something that later Christians would have treasured and preserved, with some sort of personal information.

Toto

Please name some?