Adam

Sorry for my mistake. I searched under "Bart Ehrman", which of course did not bring up this "Ehrman" thread. Strangely enough the thread ran only from April 25 to 27, but the post #26 as above in my post came out April 28 and got no response. I guess I was busy in that four-day period with other Ehrman threads and my own threads. Already by April 27 the thread had gotten off topic. Mostly what I have heard ever since is aa declaring that HJ and Ehrman are demolished. I don't respond to aa as a rule, and I guess few others do either. Also I recall reading Carrier's response to Ehrman the next month.

srd44

Why? because the mythist position rests on nothing. Here are 5 assumptions or faulty methodolgy that the Mythists fail to address.

1) There are frankly speaking no mythic elements in the Jesus story/stories. There are no talking serpents, anthropomorphic deities, allusions to agricultural myths, no presentation of a primordial of pre-historical time-frame, no description of a decent and ascent from the underworld, no demi-gods, etc. The only element that might be inferred as mythic is the virgin birth story, but even there the claim is dubious (see #4).

2) In fact, the label or idea of a mythical Christ comes from a later period in Christianity. In the 3rd and 4th centuries under Roman influence, Christ was assimilated into Greco-Roman myths and mystery cults. There are literary and art works which recognize many of these assimilations: Christ as Orpheus, Christ as Adonis (or vice versa), Christ as Osiris, etc. Another example of later Christian mythicization is represented in gnostic literature where there is repeated talk of ascents to the 7 realms of heaven where the individual meets mythological figures, rewritings of the Fall myth that place Christ as the talking serpent, etc. What our so-called Mythists have actually done is retrojected a phenomenon of later Christianity onto its origins. This is just poor methodology. Today among biblical scholars, the paradigm is to understand the early Jesus movement from within 1st century Palestinian Judaism, even if, granted, this morphed into other religious varieties and beliefs in later periods.

3) The 1st century Palestinian Judaic context amply explains much of what we see in the early literature. Thus even though Paul’s gospel and theology is antithetical to mainstream 1st c. Judaism it nevertheless can be explained from within this very context, AND the fact that Paul has adopted his “Jewish” message for non-Jewish Greeks. Much of the later literature, the gospels, can also be understood from the socio-historical contexts that gave birth to each of their compositions—a socio-historical context that often witnessed the very questions that Judaism itself faced upon the destruction of its primary religious symbol and center, the temple. Early “Christian” writers were attempting to provide an answer to ‘what direction should Judaism take’ as too were other Jewish groups of the 1st and 2nd centuries.

4) All of the supernatural, miraculous, and hyperbolic elements certainly present in the gospel accounts can sufficiently be explained by taking a broader look at what ancient Greco-Roman literature was about, especially when authors wrote “histories” and “biographies” about people who were deemed exceptional by the communities that wrote about them. Look at Plutarch’s biography of Alexander the Great, born from Aphrodite, or Seutonius’ biography of the emperor Vespasian who performed miracles of healing in the Roman forum. Or the hyperbolic biography of Apollonius of Tyre who also raised a man from the dead, cured blindness, etc. It is in this literary context that the gospel narratives must be understood.

The Mythists must overcome these data — often they simply ignore it.
Granted I think that there is also overwhelming data to conclude that the portraits of Christ in the gospels, like Plutarch’s Aphrodite mom for Alexander the Great, are in no way representative to of the historical Jesus the Jew. But that is an entirely different claim than to say there was no Jesus at all. And with this comment, I might add a final fifth query, more hypothetical in nature than the preceding four.

5) if Jesus Christ of the gospels was a literary invention (which he was even from my perspective so let’s say it’s a literary creatio ex nihilo from the Mythists’ perspective) then for what rationale? So that a heretical sect could be persecuted by its mainstream father-religion? Or burnt alive by Roman emperors? So that this community of people, many of whom were poor, outcast, could hand over their very last possessions, become labeled as criminals by the political hegemony, and opt out of living economically in the world to sit and wait for the messiah?

In sum, the modern mythists argument runs: if you don't come up in a Google search, you don't exist. What BS.

stephan huller

This is silly. There are times where I attack specific 'mythicist' claims but there is no doubt in my mind that the original Jesus of history was supernatural or 'was understood to be a supernatural being' = a god appearing in a specific historical day, year and time. If there was a modern position that reinforced a supernatural being identified as Jesus appearing in a specific historical year, I'd acknowledge that 'mythicist' tradition as being more correct than most. I have a problem with the term 'mythicist' because I think it's loaded but let's move on.

All of what you are saying here isn't worth considering or commenting upon. When you get around to reading the earliest Church Fathers and their attacks against the Marcionites (especially Tertullian in Book Four and Five of Against Marcion) you will see that he goes out of his way to claim that BECAUSE the Catholic Church was the earliest tradition it is the most correct tradition.

The point is that figuring out which tradition was first helps determine the truth about Jesus. Once that is accomplished - and the inevitable answer is that the Marcionites (or whatever the Church Fathers were identifying as 'Marcionite') were the first organized tradition, their canon was the earliest or closest to being earliest and thus their claims are the most correct about Jesus.

And again, let me say with absolute certainty that what now passes for 'historicism' is certainly the most incorrect tradition - the farthest removed from antiquity. As I have said over and over again, the original tradition of the Fathers is that Jesus was a god born to a woman. You are about as likely to 'see' a god being born to a woman as you are a supernatural being coming down from heaven. The fact is however that these are the original claims of Christianity. We can't simply find shelter in American neo-Protestantism merely because it is 'works best' with modern science. No one thought this in antiquity.

aa5874

You are completely mis-informed. You seem not to understand that the QUEST for an historical Jesus was initiated WITHOUT any input from MJers.

The QUEST for an Historical Jesus began when it was admitted hundreds of years ago that Jesus of Nazareth in the NT was a depicted as a Figure of Faith--A Literary construct--A Messianic concept.

HJers are really wasting time attacking MJers because HJers themselves are presently LOOKING for an HJ of Nazareth all over the World.

The HJ of Nazareth argument is an argument AGAINST the NT CANON and does NOT require any argument at all from MJers.

It is the very Canon which states that Jesus was born of a Ghost and a virgin in Bethlehem, was God the Creator, was on the pinnacle of the Jewish Temple with his contemporary SATAN, the Devil, walked on water, transfigured, resurrected, ate food after he was raised from the dead and then ascended in a cloud.

HJers are arguing AGAINST the Bible.

HJers MUST show that the Bible is a source of Fiction, discrepancies, contradictions with characters that never existed and events that never happened.

HJers will then use the very same Discredited Bible for their Jesus of Nazareth.