GakuseiDon

I finally got my copy of Doherty's book (yay!) so I will be writing a review once I've gone through and checked his sources, probably in around 3 to 6 months. Would you like to help validate my review of his sources?

Johnny Skeptic

I am an admitted amateur regarding most of biblical criticism and history. It takes memory like an elephant in order to become even an adept amateur. I do not have the memory of an elephant. Thus, it would not be reasonable for me to help validate your book, but thanks for the invitation.

I am not reasonably certain one way or the other whether or not Jesus existed.

Petergdi

I don't think they all are, but can anyone really suppose that they are all sincere either?

I have no idea if the sincere are the majority or the minority.

Peter.

Toto

Yes. Why would anyone take a minority position like that, when most atheists think that Jesus was an ordinary man or a deluded insane person, and this is enough to falsify Christianity?

Petergdi

I don't know. Human psychology seems really complex. Have you never seriously suspected any of the Jesus-never-existed posters of not believing their own theories? I'm not naming anyone in particular becuase of the rules, but I think you have suspected at least one of not believing his own theory.

Peter.

Chaucer

BINGO!

Toto

I think that Pete (mountainman) has been accused of just being provocative, and he seems to be playing a game of "just provide me with some evidence that I can't dismiss for some reason or another."

But Pete is not a mythicist, meaning someone who thinks that Christianity started based on a mythical savior. He is proferring a theory in which Christianity was an outright fraud and a wholesale invention. And he's never said that he actually believes this, just that you can't disprove it.

Chili

In defense of Pete will I argue that it was all myth and that there was no historical Jesus, or Peter of Paul and that the 12 apostels were eidelons that indeed can go 'on the run' which then makes the entire story an event that happened in the mind of one man and they called him Joseph but that could have been any man and actually happened to many men in those days.

Let's be sure to understand that myth is real and that we are not real because we will die. Myth deals with or describes eternal things and since we are eternal in our soul (sic), we have, or can have knowledge of these eternal things and so they exist only in our mind where we can visions, or just be gnostic or telec at the outer ends of this scale.

So while I agree that there never was a Jesus of Nazareth it remains true that Nazareth is real because it existed in the mind of this man called Joseph to have sufficient cause to have these series of events come about. This would then be at least part of the Efficient cause that was formulated in the Formal cause that changed the Material Cause in the Final cause at the end.

lpetrich

I don't see why that's necessarily the case.

I wouldn't be surprised if some people express Jesus mythicism just to be a sort of Devil's Advocate, to try to draw out arguments for Jesus Christ's historicity.

I also wouldn't be surprised if some people express Jesus mythicism just to get people's goats.

But I doubt that the more prominent Jesus mythers like Earl Doherty are Devil's Advocates or professional contrarians or trolls.

They don't spend much of their time hanging out in Xian messageboards claiming that you can't prove that there was a historical Jesus Christ, then tut-tutting their responders on how irrational their reactions are, then whining about how obsessed they are with trolls, and then saying how grievously wronged they are when they got banned.

Why don't you try to research this question some time?

As a Devil's Advocate or a contrarian or a troll, perhaps.

It must also be pointed out that some historical-Jesus theories don't offer much comfort for Xian apologists. Jesus Christ as 100% human and surrounded by mythology is not what they want to believe.

Petergdi

Because I can't read minds. I'm pretty good at picking up clues, there are some people I'm certain are sincere and some I'm certain are insincere, but there are others who I have no evidence to reliably distinguish and it is possible I may be wrong even of some I feel certain about.

Jesus as 100% human is perfect orthodoxy.

Peter.