Gooch's dad

The question remains, Amaleq--why isn't this being discussed in peer-reviewed journals of historical inquiry?

Solo

Actually, I am curious why the sudden fading of the original mythicist school ( the Dutch radicals/John M. Robertson/Massey/Drews) took place at about the the break of 1900's. Do you know of any work or a competing school of thought that precipitated the academic demise (it seems everywhere) of the early mythicist theories ?

Jiri

RAFH

I think the appropriate statement is:

Lots o' Jesus' in there. Or Lotsa Jesus' in there.

In any case, Malachi, you might as well give up trying to make your point. It is not going to happen unless you publish your work in a major historical review and it doesn't get torn to shreds. I hope you do carry through with it, you have many points I believe to be valid. The whole issue with Josephus reference is exactly as you put it, even if it were exactly as is claimed, its still downright amazing this is the only reference there is. In Josephus, in all of History. And even it is not first hand, but would be Josephus relating what had happened a year or two before he was born.

What's very odd is this reference is to an event somewhere around 62 CE, 25 years after the reported death of JC. Kind of odd to refer to someone as the brother of someone dead for 25 years. That also would make James, brother of JC, something like in his 50s if he were the younger brother and more like in his 60s if an older stepbrother. The older stepbrother is more likely, as he wasn't there to comfort Mary as would her next oldest surviving son do. This all may be an avenue of inquiry to determine the validity of the 'brother of Jesus' issue. Ya have to wonder what ole James was doing all those 25 years. Supposedly he was the Patriarch of Jerusalem though I'd think that would make him pretty unpopular with the locals and their overlords.

Frankly, given that Christians were not exactly popular with the Romans, its hard to see why they would care much if James, brother of Jesus Christ (whom the Romans had executed for sedition) was murdered judicially or not. Indeed, given the Romans were after the whole lot of the Apostles (according to Christian history though nary a word of it in Roman records) they'd probably execute him themselves.

Still, its funny, one glancing reference.

Toto

There was no evaluation of the evidence that established the historicity of Jesus. Bultman simply declared that anyone who though Jesus was merely a myth was insane, and his prestige was enough to establish that.

You will not find any modern historian who has evaluated the evidence and concludes that Jesus existed, without making a major leap of faith in accepting some doubtful propositions. There isn't enough evidence to work with.

gstafleu

As usual people ignore (or are ignorant of) the fact that the Jesus Myth theory does not just rest on the absence of evidence of a historical Jesus. So it is time to point to my

The two threads of the Jesus Myth argument

thread, which explains the three legs (sorry, I was in a Monthy Python mood) of the HJ argument. It is those three legs together that make it such a solid theory. Ignoring two legs and pretending the argument has just one leg is not valid.

Gerard Stafleu

andrewcriddle

There were probably a number of factors: to some extent the mythicist ideas ran into difficulties in their detailed development.

One important factor IMO is that a strong element behind this mythicist school was the application to the NT of the approach to religion and mythology found in Frazer's Golden Bough.

As a new generation of scholars rejected Frazer's type of approach to religion and mythology the perceived plausibility of a mythicist explanation of Christian origins was substantially undermined.

Andrew Criddle

No Robots

There is more to it than this. Frazer's examination of the crucifixion of Christ appeared in the first edition of the Golden Bough in the chapter on scapegoats. In a later edition, he made the crucifixion bit into a note, accompanied by the following disclaimer:

The hypothesis which it sets forth has not been confirmed by subsequent research, and is admittedly in a high degree speculative and uncertain. Hence I have removed it from the text but preserved it as an appendix on the chance that, under a pile of conjectures, it contains some grains of truth which may ultimately contribute to a solution of the problem. As my views on this subject appear to have been strangely misunderstood, I desire to point out explicitly that my theory assumes the historical reality of Jesus of Nazareth as a great religious and moral teacher [not, you will notice, as the Son of God] who founded Christianity and was crucified at Jerusalem under the governorship of Pontius Pilate. The testimony of the gospels, confirmed by the hostile evidence of Tacitus (Ann. 15,44) and the younger Pliny (Epist. 10,96) appears amply sufficient to establish these facts to the satisfaction of all unprejudiced enquirers. It is only the details of the life and death of Christ that remain, and will probably always remain, shrouded in the mists of uncertainty. The doubts which have been cast upon the historical reality of Jesus are, in my judgment, unworthy of serious attention. Quite apart from the positive evidence of history and tradition, the origin of a great religious and moral reform is inexplicable without the personal existence of a great reformer. To dissolve the founder of Christianity into a myth, as some would do, is hardly less absurd than it would be to do the same for Mohammed, Luther, and Calvin. Such dissolving views are for the most part the dreams of students who know the great world chiefly through its pale reflection in books. These extravagances of scepticism have been well exposed by Professor C.F. Lehmann-Haupt in his Israel, seine Entwicklung im Rahmen der Weltgeschichte (Tubingen, 1911), pp. 275-285. In reprinting the statement of my theory I have added a few notes, which are distinguished by being enclosed in square brackets].)

You can read the rest of the crucifixion bit here (search for keyword "crucifixion of christ").

Many of the subsequent editions dropped the crucifixion bit altogether.

The crucifixion bit was very useful to the mythicists, and keen was the disappointment with its repudiation by Frazer. My dad still hints darkly of Vatican pressure. I think this really did take the wind out of the mythicist sails.

Malachi151

I have never understood why the Pliny letter is cited a evidence for a historical Jesus? It never mentions Jesus, and never even talks about Christ as a person, it only talks about the interrogation of Christians. Why is this listed as evidence for Jesus?

Her pinkness saves

Gooch's dad, can you do me a favour?

Can you tell me anything [outside of the obviously "mythicized" gospel stories] about this Jesus who you believe existed behind the bible?

Solo

But the problem is the "mythical" theory started to fade well before Bultmann. Schweitzer, who appears quite fair and evenhanded, barely notices the Dutch (briefly mentions only Loman). Given Schweitzer character, it would be hard to argue that he tried to hide something. It looks more likely that by the time he wrote the Quest (1906) they were not making the grade in the intellectual circles.

Incidentally, Schweitzer recalls a conversation between Wieland and Napoleon in Weimar in 1808 in which the emperor breached the subject of Jesus existence. Wieland is said to have said: "I am aware that there have been some men crazy enough to doubt it, but to me it seems just as crazy to doubt whether Julius Caesar lived or whether Your Majesty lives".
Bonaparte was personally acquainted with Volney.

Jiri