Amaleq13

I wouldn't ask if I knew what specific contradictions you had in mind.

I'm don't recall any mythicists discussing martyrs at all let alone contradicting one another on the subject.

Yuri Kuchinsky

Some prominent mythicists argue that Christianity goes back even before the Roman empire.

Yuri.

Amaleq13

Who?

Toto

Why does any totalitarian state harrass dissenters? But we don't know that they were so laid-back and harmless. Christians did end up subverting the ideological basis of the Roman Empire.

Do you think you could give some details on this instead of just asserting it?

And why would you expect all mythicists to be on the same page, without a Mythical Pope and a Mythical Inquisition to keep them in line?

diana

So...before the theory of evolution, people were simply crazy to at least say that the story of Creation didn't make sense and sounded like a myth?

You appear to be bifurcating vociferously, Yuri. The lack of any theory on one side when there are in fact several possible alternate explanations does not automatically prove the validity of your position.

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination, a prominent mythicist. However, I've long argued that I've yet to see any solid reason to believe the Christ myth began during the first century AD. It quite possibly started earlier.

I've not read anyone arguing that it preceded the Roman empire, though. Am I reading the wrong books?

d

Vorkosigan

Actually, it has been discussed on many lists. Historicist Christianity arose as the answer to the problem of legitimacy. Since all the Christianities traced their origins back to the legendary first century gospels, the Orthodox solution was to historicize their legendary beginnings in the person of Jesus himself. This strategy came to full fruition with Luke, who invented the Historical Jesus out of the Narrative Jesus Mark created.

This trend did not occur in a single place or time, but was the result of an evolutionary process that occurred throughout the proto-Orthodox wing of emergent Christianity. The result of a selection process of the same time that produced many of the specific alterations of the Gospel texts.

Positioning one's invented figures as quasi/historical figures was a common practice in Hellenistic fiction, BTW. When Luke made his move, the tools were already present.

Vorkosigan

Ted Hoffman

Yuri, with this kind of bluster what you are achieving is displaying, in spectacular fashion, your monumental ignorance on the mythicist hypothesis. You dont have to sympathize with the mythicist hypothesis, but the bare minimum is to understand what you are criticizing before you start criticizing.

Peter Kirby

Ted, mythicism is not just one hypothesis.

best,
Peter Kirby

Ted Hoffman

True Peter. Which prominent mythicists? Wells? Did wells argue such a thing?

Amaleq13

I don't think so. He talks about the execution of Jesus possibly taking place well before Christianity developed but I don't think he suggests the beliefs can be pushed back that far. Same with Alvar Ellegard, IIRC.