GakuseiDon

Wasn't it Shirley Case's articles on the mythicist positions, from around 1911?

Case, Shirley Jackson. "The Historicity of Jesus: An Estimate of the Negative Argument", The American Journal of Theology, volume 15, issue 1, 1911.

Case's views are also available on-line, starting from here:
http://christianorigins.com/case/

He writes:

Drews has absorbed, perhaps more thoroughly than any of the other extremists, the main features of these radical positions.[1] The five theses which he presented for discussion at the Berlin conference are a very good epitome of his position:[2]

1. Before the Jesus of the gospels there existed already among Jewish sects a Jesus-god and a cult of this god which in all probability goes back to the Old Testament Joshua, and with this were blended on the one hand Jewish apocalyptic ideas and on the other the heathen notion of a dying and rising divine redeemer.

2. Paul, the oldest witness for Christianity, knows nothing of a "historical" Jesus. His incarnated Son of God is just that Jewish-heathen redeeming divinity Jesus whom Paul merely set in the center of his religious world-view and elevated to a higher degree of religio-ethical reflection.

3. The gospels do not contain the history of an actual man, but only the myth of the god-man Jesus clothed in historical form, so that not only the Israelitish prophets along with the Old Testament types of the Messiah, a Moses, Elijah, Elisha, etc., but also certain mythical notions of the Jews' heathen neighbors concerning belief in the redeeming divinity made their contribution to the "history" of that Jesus.

4. With this method of explanation an "undiscoverable" remainder which cannot be derived from the sources indicated may still exist, yet this relates only to secondary and unimportant matters which do not affect the religious belief in Jesus; while on the contrary all that is important, religiously significant, and decisive in this faith, as the Baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of Jesus, is borrowed from the cult-symbolism of the mythical Jesus, and owes its origin not to a historical fact but to the pre-Christian belief in the Jewish-heathen redeeming divinity.

5. The "historical" Jesus, as determined by the critical theology, is at any rate of so doubtful, intangible, and faded a form that faith in him cannot possibly longer be regarded as the indispensable condition of religious salvation.

Thus modern radical criticism sets up its mythical Christ over against the historical Jesus of liberal theology. While there is much variety in the details, the main outlines of the radicals' contention are clearly defined. They all agree in treating the evidence for a historical Jesus as wholly unreliable. This involves in most instances the hypothesis of a second-century date for the New Testament writings. Robertson, Mead, and Drews hold to the genuineness of the principal Pauline letters,[1] yet they so read themas to find there no proof for Jesus' existence. Much stress is usually placed upon the paucity of the non-Christian references to the new religion and its alleged founder in the first century A.D. On the positive side, a theory of Christianity's origin is constructed out of more obscure and remote data gleaned from the life and thought of the ancient world. Although at this point there are wide variations in the items chosen, the choice is regulated by a uniform principle, namely, ideas not persons are the significant factors in the origin of a religion. As a corollary of this principle, it follows that a Christ-idea, not a historical Jesus, is the primal formative element in the genesis of Christianity. Not only can any unique historical founder be dispensed with, but this possibility proves so alluring that his person is forthwith eliminated from the history. Consequently the liberal theologians' contention for the significance of Jesus, both as a figure in the past and for the thought of the present, seems to the radicals wholly fallacious...

It is an obvious fact that the champions of this modern radicalism have not approached their task as specialists in the field of early Christian history, nor are they thoroughly equipped to use the tools of that science. Not only so, but they deliberately discard those tools and condemn the methods of the historical theologian as unscientific, because he allows Jesus an especially significant place and refuses to push critical skepticism to what they regard the logical issue—that is, the denial of Jesus' existence. This animosity toward the theologian sometimes leads to a misunderstanding, or even to a misrepresentation, of his position. For example, Drews's fifth thesis implies a criticism of the "critical theology" which is hardly just, if the reference is to leading representatives of New Testament critical study in Germany. Nor is it true, as Drews again insinuates, that these scholars think religion today is to be explained and established "only through textual criticism in a philological way."[1] They hold neither that an accurate critical text, nor that faith in a "historical" Jesus, in the sense of accepting any given number of doctrines about him, constitutes the essentials of religion. It seems very evident, however, that one feature of the present radical movement, and one which looms large in the vision of many of its advocates, is a hatred for "theology" and the "theologians."[2] While this bitterness has, doubtless, been aggravated by the scathing denunciations which the radicals have sometimes received at the hands of their opponents, its fundamental ground is the question of what religious significance shall be attached to Jesus. The "mythologists" are determined that this shall be nil.

Toto

Shirley Case was cited to me as the definitive refutation, but there's no there there.

For instance, Case writes in Ch. 8 Is there any modern scholar who would agree with this for other than apologetic reasons?

Doherty finds little reason to take Case's arguments as definitive here.

ApostateAbe

In another thread, GakuseiDon answered the question of how mythicism was defeated in academic circles 100 years ago. He quoted from Shirley Jackson Case, presented again below. It is an especially surprising passage, because it seems to closely mirror the debate that we see today on both sides--the positions, the arguments, the insults, all of it. The counterpoints to Jesus-minimalism are hardly less relevant for today than in 1912.

The passage comes from Chapter II of The Historicity of Jesus: A Criticism of the Contention that Jesus Never Lived, a Statement of the Evidence for His Existence, an Estimate of His Relation to Christianity (or via: amazon.co.uk), also online at http://christianorigins.com/case/.

[Arthur] Drews has absorbed, perhaps more thoroughly than any of the other extremists, the main features of these radical positions. The five theses which he presented for discussion at the Berlin conference are a very good epitome of his position:

1. Before the Jesus of the gospels there existed already among Jewish sects a Jesus-god and a cult of this god which in all probability goes back to the Old Testament Joshua, and with this were blended on the one hand Jewish apocalyptic ideas and on the other the heathen notion of a dying and rising divine redeemer.

2. Paul, the oldest witness for Christianity, knows nothing of a "historical" Jesus. His incarnated Son of God is just that Jewish-heathen redeeming divinity Jesus whom Paul merely set in the center of his religious world-view and elevated to a higher degree of religio-ethical reflection.

3. The gospels do not contain the history of an actual man, but only the myth of the god-man Jesus clothed in historical form, so that not only the Israelitish prophets along with the Old Testament types of the Messiah, a Moses, Elijah, Elisha, etc., but also certain mythical notions of the Jews' heathen neighbors concerning belief in the redeeming divinity made their contribution to the "history" of that Jesus.

4. With this method of explanation an "undiscoverable" remainder which cannot be derived from the sources indicated may still exist, yet this relates only to secondary and unimportant matters which do not affect the religious belief in Jesus; while on the contrary all that is important, religiously significant, and decisive in this faith, as the Baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of Jesus, is borrowed from the cult-symbolism of the mythical Jesus, and owes its origin not to a historical fact but to the pre-Christian belief in the Jewish-heathen redeeming divinity.

5. The "historical" Jesus, as determined by the critical theology, is at any rate of so doubtful, intangible, and faded a form that faith in him cannot possibly longer be regarded as the indispensable condition of religious salvation.

Thus modern radical criticism sets up its mythical Christ over against the historical Jesus of liberal theology. While there is much variety in the details, the main outlines of the radicals' contention are clearly defined. They all agree in treating the evidence for a historical Jesus as wholly unreliable. This involves in most instances the hypothesis of a second-century date for the New Testament writings. Robertson, Mead, and Drews hold to the genuineness of the principal Pauline letters, yet they so read them as to find there no proof for Jesus' existence. Much stress is usually placed upon the paucity of the non-Christian references to the new religion and its alleged founder in the first century A.D. On the positive side, a theory of Christianity's origin is constructed out of more obscure and remote data gleaned from the life and thought of the ancient world. Although at this point there are wide variations in the items chosen, the choice is regulated by a uniform principle, namely, ideas not persons are the significant factors in the origin of a religion. As a corollary of this principle, it follows that a Christ-idea, not a historical Jesus, is the primal formative element in the genesis of Christianity. Not only can any unique historical founder be dispensed with, but this possibility proves so alluring that his person is forthwith eliminated from the history. Consequently the liberal theologians' contention for the significance of Jesus, both as a figure in the past and for the thought of the present, seems to the radicals wholly fallacious.

[…]

This opposition to the "theologians" sometimes induces a polemical tone which tends to obscure the main issues of the problem. Argument is in danger of becoming mere special pleading for a "cause." It is an obvious fact that the champions of this modern radicalism have not approached their task as specialists in the field of early Christian history, nor are they thoroughly equipped to use the tools of that science. Not only so, but they deliberately discard those tools and condemn the methods of the historical theologian as unscientific, because he allows Jesus an especially significant place and refuses to push critical skepticism to what they regard the logical issue—that is, the denial of Jesus' existence. This animosity toward the theologian sometimes leads to a misunderstanding, or even to a misrepresentation, of his position. For example, Drews's fifth thesis implies a criticism of the "critical theology" which is hardly just, if the reference is to leading representatives of New Testament critical study in Germany. Nor is it true, as Drews again insinuates, that these scholars think religion today is to be explained and established "only through textual criticism in a philological way." They hold neither that an accurate critical text, nor that faith in a "historical" Jesus, in the sense of accepting any given number of doctrines about him, constitutes the essentials of religion. It seems very evident, however, that one feature of the present radical movement, and one which looms large in the vision of many of its advocates, is a hatred for "theology" and the "theologians." While this bitterness has, doubtless, been aggravated by the scathing denunciations which the radicals have sometimes received at the hands of their opponents, its fundamental ground is the question of what religious significance shall be attached to Jesus. The "mythologists" are determined that this shall be nil.

In my opinion, the prophecy of Albert Schweitzer was fulfilled--along with the romantic view of the life of Jesus, the radical critical view of Jesus is also destined for immortality, despite its exceeding unlikelihood. It hasn’t changed in 100 years.

GakuseiDon

Yes, indeed. I especially like this paragraph:

Thus modern radical criticism sets up its mythical Christ over against the historical Jesus of liberal theology. While there is much variety in the details, the main outlines of the radicals' contention are clearly defined. They all agree in treating the evidence for a historical Jesus as wholly unreliable. This involves in most instances the hypothesis of a second-century date for the New Testament writings. Robertson, Mead, and Drews hold to the genuineness of the principal Pauline letters, yet they so read them as to find there no proof for Jesus' existence. Much stress is usually placed upon the paucity of the non-Christian references to the new religion and its alleged founder in the first century A.D. On the positive side, a theory of Christianity's origin is constructed out of more obscure and remote data gleaned from the life and thought of the ancient world. Although at this point there are wide variations in the items chosen, the choice is regulated by a uniform principle, namely, ideas not persons are the significant factors in the origin of a religion.

ApostateAbe

I am thinking maybe the most insightful anti-mythicist literature really is from 100 years ago. This book is certainly gold. Chapter VII is "The Gospel Evidence For Jesus' Existence," and his final argument is this:

Finally, one of the strongest arguments for Jesus' existence is the existence of the primitive community of believers. The new faith at the very beginning emphasizes its loyalty to a personal founder who soon after his death is accorded divine honors amounting practically to worship. We have been told that this reverence on the part of the disciples necessarily excludes the possibility of Jesus' historicity; it is inconceivable that men should worship one who had been actually known to them in his human limitations. Whether this principle was strictly binding in the ancient world may be questioned; nevertheless if Christians had rendered worship to the man Jesus as such, the above objection might be plausible. It was, however, the exalted Messiah to whom godlike homage was paid. The transition of thought from the earthly Jesus to the heavenly Christ was not a gradual process requiring centuries of growth; it was effected almost in the twinkling of an eye by the tour de force of the resurrection experiences. Believers were now confident that God had done something for Jesus which had not been done for any other man—Jesus had been miraculously raised from the dead—and those who believed this honored Jesus accordingly. Doubtless a high estimate of him while on earth has to be presupposed as the antecedent of the latter attitude, but the notion of deification, so far as the early believers were concerned, rested upon faith in his resurrection. And this faith, in turn, needed an earthly Jesus quite as much as a heavenly Christ.

Christians were doubtless conscious of some incongruity between their former attitude toward Jesus and their reverence for him after his resurrection. They tried to remove this discrepancy by enlarging upon their memory of his earthly career, while they explained their failure to perceive his uniqueness during his lifetime as due to dulness on their part. Their hearts were hardened and their eyes were holden. But under these circumstances must we not suppose that the earthly Jesus was troublesome to the community because of the difficulty of fitting him into their christological speculations? And if so, can we consistently make the community's existence rest fundamentally upon the existence of this Jesus? On the other hand it is quite wrong to imagine that early Christians ever wanted to rid themselves of the fact of Jesus' earthly career—not even by the Docetists was that attempted. It was only the too vivid outlines of Jesus' human limitations that his zealous interpreters sought to remove, but to eliminate his historical existence would have meant shipwreck for their faith. In fact the idea of an exalted Christ alone would hardly have sufficed even for their christological speculations, since it would have invalidated their resurrection faith. Much less could it have supplied an adequate background for the uniqueness and vitality of the new religion. This was from the first linked up with the memory of a historical founder. This fact we have already discovered in Paul's relations with the first Christians; it appears again in the early chapters of Acts, and it is further attested by the central place given to Jesus' words and deeds in the earliest phases of gospel tradition. The impetus for the new movement comes from this individual, he supplies the incentive for the new type of thinking, he is the object about which the new literature gathers, and he is the model and inspiration of the new community's life.

This forceful individual, who impressed his own and succeeding generations with his life of loyal service for humanity and his plain yet profoundly significant religious teaching, started Christianity on its way. To find this ideal without a historical Jesus, as to create Paul without Paul, is practically impossible. The Christ-idea alone is not equal to the task of producing Christianity, it is not sufficiently real, human, vital. The new movement was certainly influenced by ideas of various sorts with which it came into contact from time to time. It even adopted current notions and ritualistic practices in the effort to give tangible expression to its inner life, but the starting-point of theology and ritual, as well as of literary activity and religious impulse, was the memory of an earthly Jesus. He was the great source of inspiration for Christian living. Just as Paul is found harking back to the type of life exemplified in Jesus, so must many Christians have seen in him the personal embodiment of their ideal. Thus each became, according to individual ability, a coefficient of the Jesus-life. While the new religion, "Christianity," took its name from the heavenly Christ of faith, the actual existence of an earthly Jesus was its corner-stone. Other foundation hath no man laid—successfully.

A lot of very good points in that, especially the reflections of the myth of the resurrection. How meaningful would a belief in a resurrection be if it were merely a matter of explicit myth, fiction, allegory, or spirituality? The myth has power almost purely because it is an extraordinary event in the context of earthly experiences, and it has little or no persuasive power without the belief in Jesus as an earthly human figure.

aa5874

Actually the argument is EXTREMELY WEAK. A Human Jesus is a COMPLETE DISASTER.

We have the Gospels stories and can see MASSIVE holes in "The Gospel Evidence For Jesus' Existence,".

First of all the passage you quote is IMAGINATION based.

Let us go to gMark.

1. Jesus DEMANDED that the disciples TELL NO MAN that he was Christ.

2. The disciples had ABANDONED Jesus when he was arrested

3. Peter had DENIED that he EVER knew or was associated with Jesus.

4. Jesus was Crucified after being condemned to be guilty of death for Blasphemy.

5. Jesus is DEAD.

6. Three days later the BODY of Jesus had vanished.

7. The visitors FLED from the tomb TREMBLING with fear.

It is ABSOLUTELY clear from gMark that if Jesus was human then he was a COMPLETE disaster.

The human Jesus DESTROYED the FAITH of the supposed disciples. They all FLED and ABANDONED the man and were DUMB-STRUCK with FEAR.

Mr 14:50 - Mark 14Mr 16:8 - If Jesus was human then he was a TOTAL FAILURE. He DIED in DISGRACE, He was CURSED, SPAT upon, Beaten and then brutally Crucified while his disciples ALL ABANDONED him and one DENIED even knowing him.

There are MASSIVE Holes in the HJ theory.

We have the stories and we will EXPOSE ALL the HOLES.

HJ makes NO sense whatsoever.

When did PETER who denied he ever knew Jesus begin to tell people Jesus was a Messiah?

After the MAN was DEAD?

Don't make me laugh!!!!

There is NOTHING as a POSTHUMOUS MESSIAH.

The JEWS do not look for their MESSIAH among the dead.

HJ makes NO sense whatsoever.

A human Jesus is a DISASTER within 72 HOURS Jesus was a FALSE prophet. He claimed he would resurrect on the third day.

What a BIG LIE. What a FALSE prophet

Toto

Are you sure you want to base your argument on this? There was a historical Jesus because his followers worshiped him as a god immediately after his death, because of the Resurrection experiences?

In fact, the early "high Christology" in Paul's letters is a problem for historicists. How did it happen so quickly, if you are a naturalist and do not think that there was an actual resurrection of Jesus' body?

But then Case goes on to try to fit this into a the gospel scenario:

Case is assuming that the disciples dullness as portrayed by Mark is historical, although Mark was written several generations after this community supposedly had these resurrection experiences.

I don't think we have to suppose this. We have no evidence of this community.
Eh?

What is this about?

Case wrote well before the Jesus Seminar discounted most of these words as not being authentic to Jesus.

A forceful individual who disappeared from early Christianity, so that later Christians had to search for details about him in the Hebrew Scriptures?

You are one step from the Christian apologetic argument that Christianity is True because how else do you explain its growth? And why would the disciples die for a lie? :Cheeky:

Do you think there was a resurrection? If not, why would the resurrection experiences need an actual, recently executed historical character? (And note that we have no actual evidence of any resurrection experience, only second or third hand reports in unreliable documents. Even Paul only hints at the actual experience that he had, with some references to the third heaven.)

The existence of Christianity as a New Religion in the Roman Empire does not require any extraordinary events, or a real human founder. Would you like to argue that Isis must have really existed, or Mithras?

Shirley Case is a product of the last century. There have been advances in New Testament studies in the past 100 years, and his arguments do not hold up.

Steven Carr

'Believers were now confident that God had done something for Jesus which had not been done for any other man—Jesus had been miraculously raised from the dead—and those who believed this honored Jesus accordingly. '

Are historicists really going to rely on explanations that something weird happened?

A crucified criminal was now treated as the agent through whom God had created the world.

This is like a group of people claiming Lee Harvey Oswald had been honoured by God as the True President of the United States.

Why weren't they immediately stoned to death as blasphemers?

And why didn't miracle stories grow up about this person by the time Paul was writing and mocking Jews for demanding to hear about miracles?

'The impetus for the new movement comes from this individual, he supplies the incentive for the new type of thinking, he is the object about which the new literature gathers, and he is the model and inspiration of the new community's life.'

To translate this into English, Paul uses examples from Abraham's life to illustrate righteousness. The author of Hebrews uses people not listening to Moses as the prime examplar of people who heard and rebelled. And the author of James talks about anybody except Jesus - who had, of course, become the 'model' of the new community's life.

Vorkosigan

Indeed, Paul is constantly discussing Jesus' life -- what things he ate and how that affected believers' diets, Jesus' marriage and how believers should act like him, Jesus' preferred times, form, and behavior at prayer, Jesus' early life and childhood, Jesus' business acumen and business ethics when he worked for his father Joseph.....

Vorkosigan

In other words, AA, Shirley Jackson Case is just another hopelessly dim apologist who doesn't even get, let alone refute, the JM case.