Diogenes the Cynic

1. [Nitpick] Its an argument from incredulity, not incredibility.
2. Just because one person's reasons for believing in the possibility of an HJ do not strike you as convincing do not mean that the person must harbor some kind of secret, evangelistic inclinations (and Chris is far more nuanced and sophisticated in his reasoning than to stand behind nothing but a Big Bang theory. Give him SOME credit).
3. The question of HJ is a perfectly valid historical question completely irrespective of any belief in deities. Personally, I am currently agnostic on the question. Like you, I was once fairly impressed by Crossan. Now I'm not so sure but I haven't been quite tipped into an unqualified embrace of Mythicism. I think there isn't enough data to know one way or the other. I can also assure you that I am positive that I don't have the faintest belief in gods, ghosts, miracles, psychic powers or any supernatural phenomena whatsoever. I just don't believe that there is nothing inherently impossible about notion that the Jesus myth started with a historical Jewish teacher who may have originated a core sayings tradition and/or been crucified and I don't think I should have to defend my athest credentials for simply acknowledging that some kind of HJ is not a prima facie impossiblity. We know that myths have arisen from historical figures before. The Santa Claus myth arose from a real 4th century bishop. I see the difference between the historical St. Nicholas of Myra and Santa Claus as being roughly analogous to the difference between a possible HJ and the "Christ" of Christian myth.

I also believe there was a real Mohammed but I'm not about to buy a prayer rug any time soon.

yalla

Diogenes,
Nitpick accepted.
Actually I did not, I think, imply that Chris is a closet theist, tried to avoid that in fact, cos I respect his posts. I find them credible even if I do disagree.
As I do yours.
And we seem to agree on Dom..

I think there is enough data.
Of course it's not impossible that there was an HJ OR a MJ.
Just about [weasel qualifier?] nothing is impossible , or ,to put it another way, anything is possible......in theory anyway.
But what is the probability?
When, if like me, you get to the stage of not accepting any of the HJ ''evidence" are you [generic you, not you or Chris, but 'you' out there] entitled to say that an HJ is an unacceptable position?
Even when the most overwhelming position has been reached could someone not claim that " Of course it is still possible that there was some smidgin of validity in the HJ legend" ?
Can we ever prove the total negative?
How close do we need to get to state that an HJ concept has such low probability as to render the concept meaningless and irrelevant?
Do we confidently state that Zeus, Krisna, Manitou, Narrungdjeri et al MAY possibly be based on a historical person?
That's a plethora of fellas who inspired religions isn't it? 1000's of them.
We know that myths can originate from distantly related prototypes, we also know that that process is not inevitiable or necessary or certain.

Well I reckon we do not have the evidence for an HJ, Chris reckons there is a bit, you are not sure, [ or so it seems to me] please don't have a go at me for having an opinion different to yours.
I'm approaching this as a detective's dilemma and my solution to whodunnit, based on the evidence, differs from yours so far in that I am prepared to say that there was no crime.
No ad homs there.
cheers
yalla

Edited ps....there must have been a Mohammed cos I've seen the hairs of his beard, therefore he was real.

Chuckling Atheist

Chris: I believe that a man named Jesus (or whatever the correct Aramaic or Hebrew pronunciation is,) existed. It was actually a very common name in the area.

However I dispute his claims of divinity. Besides, that Jesus wasn't the first Jew crucified by the Romans for publicly saying he was the messiah. Apollonius of Tyana lived at the same time and was crucified for the same thing.

cajela

I agree this seems silly. As a total ignoramus in this field, the HJ arguments I've read here seem pretty plausible to me. Primarily, if it was all made up, why are there so many false prophecies and failures to match the messianic ones? It doesn't matter to me - whether made up or mythologised, he wasn't God. But surely that's a great puzzle for a historian and they should be welcome to play with it.

Diogenes the Cynic

I think an argument could be made that a hypothetical HJ could have existed without having ever claimed to have either been divine or been the Messiah (and those would have actually been mutually contradictory claims anyway). It is not necessary to believe that Jesus thought he was the Messiah (or thought he was God) in order to believe he existed. My own tentative theoretical model for HJ (in which I have only a modicum of confidence) is that he could have been a wisdom teacher (possibly an ecstatic mystic) who was only called Messiah after his death.

Chris Weimer

Yeah, you kind of have to do that when you're an atheist.

Chuckling Atheist

The only thing that could be interpreted as a miracle was the sky darkening when Jesus died on the cross. It was recorded by Josephus, but a scientific explanation is that it was an eclipse.

This is just one of a few examples of natural phenomena given divine stature in the bible, which was written decades after the death of Jesus between 30-36 CE.

Chuckling Atheist

:Cheeky:

Diogenes the Cynic

No it wasn't. Where did you get that?

S.C.Carlson

Not a solar eclipse, though, because it was the wrong part of the month.

Stephen