gstafleu

Now that the festive season is approaching, it is perhaps time to rehash some favorite topics of this forum: the dates of Christ's birth and death. I'll do so from a non-Christian point of view, in order to establish a better explanation for the dates as we have them. And to draw the conclusion that we have to consider the crucifixion as mythical.

It is a favorite topic here to point out that the Bible doesn't give a date (or even year, but that's a different subject) for Christ's birth: the Church later established it as December 25 or thereabout. Given that the Bible doesn't say anything about the date, there is a 1 in 365 chance this is actually correct, provided there was a Christ to be born of course.

Another favorite topic is the date of the crucifixion, although there the range of possibilities is much smaller: it was at or around Passover. Now let's take a step back and consider why these two dates, December 25 and March 21 (more or less) make sense.

Christianity originated north of the tropics, a part of the world where Winter is an important, if annoying, time: during winter the days are short and you cannot grow food. An important date therefore is when the days are starting to grow longer again. This is on the winter solstice, December 21. After that the days grow longer, a "return of the light" so to speak. That the birth of Christ was put at (or near) that date should thus not be surprising: Christ is Christianity's "return of the light."

More interesting is the date of Easter: Easter is observed on the Sunday after the first full moon on or after the day of the vernal equinox. The vernal equinox, March 21, is the date when the length of day equals the length of night. After that date the day is longer than the night. In other words, March 21 heralds the victory of light over darkness.

Now consider the crucifixion: Christ's death is supposed to save us all from our sins, a rather clear case of victory of light over darkness, certainly if we throw in the resurrection. And the dating of Easter makes sure it is after the equinox, and thus in the time that light has just triumphed over darkness. Anybody here who wants to place money on this being coincidence?

This says something about the question: was Christ really crucified? Outside Christian tradition we have no evidence for this. Christian tradition doesn't count as evidence (a believer writing a story about his hero and then saying "see, evidence" just doesn't cut it). The Bible does however firmly tie the crucifixion to the spring equinox. That means we have a good mythical explanation for the crucifixion, but no evidence it really happened.

Of course this doesn't mean the crucifixion could not have happened and have been re-dated to the equinox. But "coulds" don't count as long as we don't have evidence. Certainly given a good mythical explanation (the equinox), the assumption has to be that the crucifixion was mythical, not factual.

In other words, an agnostic position on the reality of the crucifixion is methodologically unsound. The lack of evidence plus the availability of a good mythical explanation forces us to take a position towards the mythical side. A real crucifixion remains a logical possibility, but until evidence for it pops up it cannot be part of a working hypothesis.

Gerard Stafleu

aa5874

I do not think that the crucifixition being mythical is a stong argument because we know that crucifixitions were prevalent around the 1 st century, if we read 'Antiquities of the Jews' by F Josephus, and death is a worlwide occurence.

I am of the opinion that a more realistic approach is to consider whether anyone lived that fits the description of the persons called Jesus Christ described in the NT.

Now it can easily be deduced that all the supernatural events surrounding the characters called Jesus never occured, that is, the virgin birth, the temptation, the transfiguration, the miraculous events, casting out of devils, the resurrecction and the ascension.

So all we are left with is the description of persons who were crucified and died, and this description applies to numerous persons, and even if a person named Jesus was crucified on Good Friday, it would not be one of the persons described in the NT.

If we read 'Antiquities of the Jews' which was written around 93 CE, it would be noticed that Flavius Josephus never mentions any biblical text or any multitude of followers surrounding this questionable character, bearing in mind that the book called Mark and Matthew are estimated to have been written already.

The story of Jesus appears to be totally mythical and is only believed to be real by those who expect some compensation, they call it eternal life, in the world to come.

Peter Kirby

These kinds of broadsides are useless. They're as bad as this argument for the nonexistence of God:

(1) There is no evidence for God.
(2) I can put together some imaginings about how the God idea started.
(3) Therefore, God does not exist.

or the weaker 3'.

(3') Therefore, God cannot be used in a working hypothesis.

While the premises (1) and (2) cannot establish (3), the premise (1) alone--without premise (2)--would do a good deal towards establishing (3').

The problem with arguing for (3'), at all, is that you've said nothing. "There is no evidence for God," the fool takes as his premise, without first proving that there is no evidence. I'd like to see the premise fleshed out.

A much more useful argument would be "There is evidence that supports the idea of there being no God, and here it is..." or "There is evidence that supports the idea of there having been no Jesus, and here it is..." Your musings on the traditional dates of the Christmas and Easter feasts do not count.

And, don't push back with "you can't provide evidence for a negative." Because, firstly, that's false, and secondly, if it's the case that a belief can't be supplied with evidence ever, why, let's not believe it! Is it not wrong always and everywhere to believe on insufficient evidence?

To sum up: Please provide just your own set of evidence, your own hand of cards as it were. The reader is smart enough to look at the other hand and decide who has the higher set. "The other guy has seven high" says nothing about what you have, and is itself not a datum until established.

If I want to know whether there is no evidence for God, or Jesus, or William Tell, I'll go read their proponents and decide. If I want to know whether there is evidence against, please, give me something to sink into, or stop wasting my time.

kind regards,
Peter Kirby

gstafleu

I wasn't talking about a crucifixion but about this one in particular.

Agreed, and what I did is add good reason to suppose that an essential non-supernatural event, the crucifixion (ignoring the resurrection for a moment) is also mythical.

Gerard

Malachi151

Well, both Christmas and Easter are based on prior "pagan" festivals from the Roman Empire, but the crucifixion is said to have taken place on passover, so that sort of takes care of that, but the thing is, is that PASSOVER itself is a myth. Passover occurs when it does because it is itself based on earlier spring rites from when the Jews "were pagans".

As for Christmas:

In Rome in 274 CE December 25th was declared The Birthday of the Invincible Sun

Indeed the symbolism was that the sun died on December 22nd, and was reborn on December 25th.

None of this "proves" that the Christian story is wrong, just that these celebrations are still held on earlier pagan festival dates.

skinumb

A scenario that could fit the crusifiction myth, from my limited reading round the subject, is if Saul/Paul's religiosity was inspired in some way by contact with one of the Nostri (Nostrim?) groups that were suppossedly around at that time, and if they were followers of Yeishu ha Notzri stoned to death at Passover 88 BCE, and hung from a tree (also translates as 'plank'?), then it isn't much of a stretch to weave in the Hercules, or similar, myth to get the full nine yards. So Passover may already have been in the tradition, which gets translated to Christian Easter (?)

As to the birth, was Hercules born 25th December for similar reasons, winter solstice and all that?

Malachi151

Hercules probably comes to the Greek pantheon from Eastern religion, where he was a sun-god from a different culture, hence his birth on Dec. 25th.

The Greek pantheon subsumed the gods of many cultures.

gstafleu

Which my posting didn't to, I take it? Let's see.
I wasn't arguing for the existence, or lack thereof, of God, so in order to not drift off-topic allow me to rephrase your points:

(1) There is no evidence for a factual crucifixion.
(2) I can put together some ideas about a mythical explanation for the crucifixion.
(3) Therefore, the crucifixion is mythical, or at least a factual crucifixion cannot be a working hypothesis while a mythical one can.

Is that more or less correct? Notice that I have replaced your "imaginings" with "ideas" so that we don't slip the conclusion into the argument beforehand. I mean, nobody would want to be that sneaky, would they ?

So, in response let me first extend the argument with a necessary point 0:

(0) People believe in a factual crucifixion
(1) There is no evidence for a factual crucifixion.
(2) I can put together some ideas about a mythical explanation for the crucifixion.
(3) Therefore, the crucifixion is mythical, or at least a factual crucifixion cannot be a working hypothesis while a mythical one can.

That is important, because point 0 is what started the whole thing. What the argument is all about is explaining the existence of the belief of point 0: why do people believe this? There are two competing hypotheses:

(a) People believe this because it is historical fact, analogous to why people believe Caesar crossed the Rubicon.
(b) People believe this because it is a myth, just like people believe many myths.

Now (1) is sufficient to scuttle (a), but it doesn't establish (b). My point (2) however, the whole business about dates and light/darkness, does provide evidence for why the belief can be based on a myth. Without (2) my hypothesis (b) would be in the same position as "their" hypothesis (a).

In other words, just pointing out the other guys don't have enough evidence is not enough. It is a start, but if you don't have a better hypothesis with some evidence you are still not much better of: at least the other guys have an explanation, even if they can back it up with evidence. My dates/light story provides the evidence (reasoning, if you will) why a myth hypothesis is reasonable. Combine that with the lack of evidence for the (a) hypothesis, and I'm in business while the other guys are not.

In still other words, when you only have "no evidence," an agnostic position is still reasonable. The fact that I can provide evidence for the myth hypothesis (the crucifixion is on a significant date myth-wise) makes an agnostic position methodologically untenable.

So yes, my point (2) is rather useful .

Gerard

gstafleu

It does more than just that. Given that there is no evidence for the Christian story, and we can, as I did, provide evidence for the myth hypothesis, the myth hypothesis has to win (at least until someone comes up with evidence for the Christian story).

This is something that I have the impression is often overlooked on this forum: if you have a well-established set of myths and a religion that fits into these myths, the "default" hypothesis has to be that the religion, and its tenets, belong to the set of myths. You cannot assume that your favorite religion is for some reason non-mythical, at least in some elements, while these elements fit the established pattern of myth. That violates Occam's razor.

Gerard

skinumb

Thanks.