gnosis92

I think the strongest argument Christ-mythicists have for their case is that there is very little independent material from the New Testament confirming Jesus historicty (although they do exist, i.e Josepheus, Tacitus, Pliny etc.)
It is also odd that there is little gospel detail in Paul.

But mails then were not like emails today.

http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursede...6299&pc=Search


"Letters, especially those written by Paul, played an important role in the process.

Though many of us associate letters with the modern world, Professor Ehrman explains that they were a common form of communication in the ancient world as well. In addition to being written on papyrus, they were also often cut into the surface of a wax tablet formed in a hollowed-out board. The recipients could then smooth over the wax and reuse it for a reply, sending it, in that era before postal service, just as the original had been sent, by giving it to someone they knew who'd be traveling to the appropriate community.

Because most people in the ancient world could not read or write, letters had to be dictated and recorded by someone who could, a process reversed at the other end, where someone would be found to read the letter to the recipient."

"Letters were usually destroyed after being read so the media it was on could be used again, but if there was reason to keep them—as was the case with Paul's letters, which were meant to be read aloud to his communities—the letters would be copied by hand, circulated, and read aloud to small church gatherings."

So obviously many of the documents Christ-mythicists demand are forever lost to history, according to this practice.

Splarnst

How would this make it less likely to find surviving documents? :huh:

aa5874

I hope you realise that the case with Saul/Paul's letters may be entirely different, i.e, Paul's letters may have never been read aloud, or circulated to any congregation. Saul/Paul is introduced in the book called Acts which is regarded as fiction.

I think they left enough to establish non-historicity, not withstanding, more is always better.

Cege

Bart Ehrman is a strong believer that copies of the early Christian correspondences were made and circulated, and those copies ultimately became the basis for the New Testament canon. The problem Ehrman finds is not that they were copied and shared but that the copies contained errors and edits both inadvertent and purposeful.

OTOH, Ehrman believes there is a strong case for a historical Jesus although he has gone from evangelical Christian to agnostic as a result of his pursuit of the study of the basis and development of the NT.

neilgodfrey

Some online notes from Rosenmeyer's Ancient Epistolary Fictions give another perspective on the possibilities underyling Paul's letters.


Neil Godfrey
http://vridar.wordpress.com

skepticdude

As an atheist, I find the debate on whether Jesus existed, a complete waste of time.

We are not hurt in the least, if we affirm that the Christ of faith in the bible is based upon a real-life person named Jesus.

I would advise the few atheists who deny Jesus' existence, to grant his basic existence for the sake of argument.

Once they do that, they set the basis for launching a very powerful rebuttal to the bible and Christianity, namely; that the Jesus of history was a normal first-century Jew like any other, and it was only through religious propaganda written by his admirers after his death, that embellished him into this Christ of faith.

This allows the Christian to be hit harder, than if we just give reasons why the Christ of the bible need not be based on any real person, because the superiority of naturalism can be brought to bear and used to demonstrate that the historical evidence most strongly suggests a normal guy whose followers created legends about him, and now gives everybody a real normal person with which to compare to a cosmic Savior....lotsa problems coming yer way after that much is granted

Dean Anderson

Of course it's a waste of time. But it is an interesting waste of time.

I can't speak for anyone else, but at least in my case it is not about being "hurt". I was a happy atheist thinking that Jesus "obviously" existed. Now I am a happy atheist thinking that Jesus probably didn't exist.

It's nothing to do with a need for Jesus not to have existed (despite what many Christians claim). It's about having an interest in how Christianity got started and wanting to know what is the most likely way that happened.

I sometimes (but not always) do - it depends on the argument.

But why would I argue that, if I don't think it is true?

Ah... so it is all about "hitting Christians harder", and not about discussing what is likely to be true.

Sorry. I feel no compunction to try to argue a case that I think is incorrect, just because that case would "hit Christians harder" than what I think is correct. Doing so would be dishonest, and I have more integrity than that.

I will say what I think and why I think it when I am in discussions with Christians. I won't say things I don't believe simply to try to convert people at any cost. That would put me in the same category as the more dishonest Creationists.

youngalexander

A case may be made for none.
:huh:
Yes, it is odd if Paul was referring to an earthly jesus.
No, given their chronology and he was not.

Doug Shaver

OK. Given an absence of evidence, I can go one of two ways.

(1) I can assume that evidence for a historical Jesus once existed but is forever lost to history, and from that assumption I can infer that Jesus actually existed.

(2) I can infer from the lack of evidence that there probably never was a real Jesus.

Which option to you think Occam's razor points to?

Niall Armstrong

Perhaps.
But take into consideration that the documents that we do have, secular as well as Christian, were preserved by Christians, while many of those lost were lost deliberately by the same.

We also know that the Patriarchs searched secular sources for mentions of Jesus (and sometimes this is one of the best proofs of the fabrication, intentional or not, of such mentions, i.e. Origen vs Testimonium Flavianum), and kept, religiously, what they could find. Therefore, we may be pretty certain that what little evidence against the Christ-myth that may have existed is still available for us.

Evidence for the Christ-myth, on the other hand, may have been intentionally abandoned, as being heretical or otherwise compromising. (Though I do not deny that the purported absence of anti-heretical writings against Christ-mythers is a problem for the MJ-theory.)