Dreadnought

It's fun to read this thread and see standard apologist tactics by people who claim to be atheists. The creationist / mythicist analogy is basically a case of trying to induce guilt by association which is particularly funny because the two viewpoints are championed by opposite camps. It's a glorified ad-hom and the ones defending it in the thread do so by more speculation about personal motivation, background and what not. The paucity of actual arguments is stunning.

It should be so simple for the HJ'ers if this was such a clear cut case as they claim. Just provide the evidence and the interpretations. Give us the man. Trying to bully others into giving up their views impresses nobody, and certainly not the ones who are still on the fence like yours truly.

andrewcriddle

The attribution to Pythagoras of his famous Theorem appears to be relatively late in the tradition.

The earliest accounts of Pythagoras seem to represent him as more of a religious figure than a mathematician, it may have been [some of] his followers who developed an interest in Mathematics as fundamental to reality.

There is a good discussion here http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pythagoras/

Andrew Criddle

Gooch's dad

Wow, way to completely and utterly miss the point. The point, to paint you a clear picture, is that the Josephus = Testimonium in the eyes of a great many JM'ers. They don't seem to realize that

--there is another smaller reference to Jesus in Ant. 20.9.1, and

--this reference is considered genuine by the vast majority of scholars.

The correspondence between this reference, and Paul's reference to James as Jesus' brother, is entirely sufficient to state that Jesus the man most likely existed. It is not an extraordinary claim, and therefore does not require extraordinary evidence.

Joe Banks

Part of the problem is the corollary comparison of HJers to evolutionary scientists, which is implicit in the analogy. The main way these two groups are similar is that they both represent the consensus view of their discipline, of which MJers or creationists sit outside.

Evolution is supported by overwhelming evidence converging from many disciplines and utilizing many predictions which are confirmed by independent tests, samples, and methods. Is the HJ hypothesis? Not to my knowledge. Moreover those in the consensus that oppose MJ barely agree on anything other than the idea that there was an HJ. Which aspects of the J story represent history and which represent myth are disputed within the consensus, probably because of the lack of the above mentioned supporting evidence and methods. The same cannot be said of the consensus view opposed to creationism.

To sit outside the scientific evolutionary consensus is to ignore the evidence, tests and methods used by those who investigate the issue. To sit outside the HJ consensus is to claim that no known evidence, tests or methods unambiguosly support the HJ claim. The former has been easily debunked, the latter has not. Countering with MJ is too "out there" to take seriously, isn't proving anything.

Joe Banks

Come on, "scientific mainstream?" We are talking about biblical studies here. There is no scientific mainstream to go outside of.

Toto

I fail to see that the MJ hypothesis is a "black and white" one of "absolutism". I think you are projecting something onto it.

Many people have been injured by fundamentalism. But positing a historical Jesus who didn't say everything that the gospels claimed was the assault on fundamentalism taken by the founder of the Jesus Seminar. Does that trash all of the work of liberal scholarship?


I have only been vaguely aware of the Rational Responders campaign. But you must be aware that Professor Wells, the godfather of Mythicism, has no such issues or campaign?

I am quoting this from fairly standard accounts of the history of Jesus Mythicism. You are arguing from incredulity. I don't find your incredulity persuasive, especially since I can't find any Biblical scholar since Bultman who has considered the issues and established a sound basis for a historical Jesus based on modern historical criteria.

Peer review? I don't think so. Peer review in the sciences is based on a community of contending people who are ready to run experiments to disprove each other's claims. There is no such community of contending scholars in Biblical studies; there is a lot of respect for tradition, there is a lot of peer pressure. Eventually the truth may out, but not necessarily in the short term.

I see here that you have a deep confusion about the nature of the mythicist hypothesis. There are some independent scholars who think that Jesus was invented by a particular forger or group of conspirers, and you will find some of them posting here, like mountainman. But most mythicists see the idea of a historical Jesus as evolving out of a previous belief in a mythical savior, much as myths and legends tend to evolve.

"Shrill?" I don't think that Doherty is shrill, nor Robert Price. You can find some shrill amateurs, but you can balance them with equally shrill self-published Christian apologists. But that is all style.

And how many of those bastions of solid academic process refer to Jesus as "Yeshua?" Where do they actually debate ideas about Yeshua? Can you point me to one cite where the academy has actually discussed the mythicist hypothesis and rejected it for a clear, scholarly based reason? Just one?

Toto

You seem to have missed the fact that Doherty has discussed the Antiquities 20.9.1 reference and given reasons to think it involves an interpolation. spin has an argument on these boards analysing that passage, showing how unusual it is.

Are you just repeating that "vast majority of scholars" line or have you actually read any of the scholarship and noted the reasons they give?

Dreadnought

Who are these "great many" mythicists you are talking about? Care to name a few of them? I have yet to encounter a single mythicist who is unaware of the mention in Ant 20. Even I, a complete amateur, have known about it for years. And as Toto has pointed out it is hardly such a slam dunk as you seem to think. I won't derail into that argument, but ask yourself this question: Why would anyone feel the need to forge the one in 18 if there was a perfectly good mentioning of Jesus in 20? I suggest you search for spins argument for a much better treatment of the topic than I can give.

aa5874

I find that comparing MJers to Creationist and IDers to be fundamentally an illogical analogy.

It is HJers, Creationists and IDers who inherently tied, analogously, to one another. All of them use and depend on information in the Christian Bible alone, they all agree that parts of the Bible are true. They all have no extra-biblical, non-apologetic source, no scientific source, archaelogical source, geological, artifacts or historical source. Their positions are either faith based or emotionally derived.

The HJers, Creatonists and IDers all piggy-back on one another, their assumptions all co-relate, that is, there must be some trruth in the Christian Bible.

The MJers have no link whether in analogy or idealogy to them.

Mjers accept the Bible as legendary and mythical which is more in line with the scientific worldview.

Amaleq13

How does the analogy point out hypocrisy?

I don't think you are using that word correctly. What you describe is not hypocrisy. Doherty would be hypocritical on this issue only if he criticized someone else for failing to offer their claims for peer review.

It is not useful for furthering rational discussion of the subject and you've offered nothing to suggest otherwise. It is a replacement for actual thought.

It is just as useless in furthering rational discussion of the subject in each and every one of those examples.