Toto

I asked for a name. If there are "lots" surely you can come up with one name of a scholar with a PhD in ancient history or similar qualifications who has actually examined the evidence for a historical Jesus. (I'm not talking about PhD's who accept the existence of a historical Jesus on the basis of convention or other people's assertions.)

No. RT France was Anglican through and through.

But it's not being ignored. It is falsely claimed that the existence of a historical Jesus is so obvious or well attested or uncontroverted that it isn't worth anyone's while to lift a finger to point out the copious evidence that I can't seem to find.

Chris Weimer

For my 10,000th post.

Is the evidence so lacking, Toto? Or is it being ignored? Funny how the Jesus Myth is thriving only in a place largely hostile, and thus have a direct bias against Christianity. Or fringe revisionists like spin anyway (right or wrong, he's always taken the minority position, and on this the fringe).

So far as I can see, these proponents actually propose two things: atheism and Jesus Mythicism. They only got one of them right.

As for me, I'm bowing out of IIDB. Dean Anderson is gone, many of those with whom I was cordial are now banned, or left on their own accord, and the others have loved their ignorance to the extent that I cannot stand it.

Amicissimis nostris, qui hoc legere possunt, bona fortuna vestris studiis et pax vobiscum sit, transit enim gloria mundi.

At the end of the day,
He was able to say,
Ha! I fooled you all.

Magdlyn

Ah Chris, you're not gone, you're just invisible!

Roger Pearse

The trick is to add every dishonest or annoying poster to one's ignore list. Sadly you can't do that with admins, but you can still ignore them.

"'ere, wossis abaht a ford transit?"

All the best,

Roger Pearse

judge

Will Joseph Campbell do. He certainly had an excellent grasp on mythology, and understood well the difference between myth and history. In fact he went to great lengths to explain how christians had misunderstood the myth contained in the Hebrew bible. He was a professor, but IIRC he abandoned his Phd thesis at a young age, when he realised he had "outgrown" it and in an effort to remain true to himself he did what he really wanted to do (at least that was his story )
He clearly definitely and unequivocally stated that he thought Jesus definitely existed, this series of interviews, The Wisdon of Joseph Campbell (or via: amazon.co.uk), but didn't explain the methodology that brought him to that conclusion.
I can find the exact quote if you wish.

gurugeorge

Aww I'd be sorry to see you go, you're one of the better arguers around here, even though you're on the "wrong" side

Btw, I think you are wrong about who supports Mythicism - it's actually quite a broad church, from hardcore atheists and agnostics at one extreme, to people with "alternative" views of spirituality who might even actually like Christian symbolism but think it was misunderstood or misused or over-literalised (or whatever) at the other extreme. And there are all sorts of positions inbetween (e.g. varieities of humanist spirituality mixed with agnosticism, pantheism, panentheism, etc., rational mysticism, etc.)

The one thing that unites everybody on the mythicist side is a dislike of having been lied to (ok well that's putting it a bit extremely, but I think that's the gist of it). On the one hand it's theoretically possible to take all this calmly and cooly, in a scholarly fashion (and of course while we discuss things on a board like this, one makes a strict attempt to behave appropriately), but on the other hand, when one reflects that 2,000 years of human history in the West might have been lived under the aegis of a religion that's at best an error and at worst a deliberate con, it's not a very pleasant thought.

But, ditto, for the "other side", the necessity to defend against that possibility raises the stakes too, possibly more so, for it's even less pleasant to discover you've been on the "wrong side" of something.

However, for someone who really isn't emotionally involved in the outcome at all, it might be difficult to feel this undertow to the discussion, and be a bit baffled by it when they do occasionally get buffeted.

PhilosopherJay

Hi All,

Looking through Burton Mack's page on Wikipedia, it says that "he sees traditional Christian documents like the Gospels as myth as opposed to history". It also notes, "Though he does not regard himself as a Historical Jesus scholar, he suggests that Jesus was a wandering sage, similar in style to the Greco-Roman cynics,".

This, I regard, as a position that counts more or less as mythicist. Therefore, I have added him to my list of those with good academic credentials who take the Jesus Myth position seriously:


1) Wells, 2) Price, 3) Thompson, 4) Timothy Freke, 5) Peter Gandy, 6) Herman Detering, 7) Alvar Ellegard, 8) Darrell Doughty, 9) Frank Zindler, 10) Michael Turton, 11) Luigi Cascioli, 12) Michel Onfray, 13) Francesco Carotta, 14) Tom Harpur, 15) Hal Childs, 16), Herbert Cutner, 17) Michael O. Wise, 18) Burton Mack.

Antipope Innocent has not given me his list of academic fields relevant to the study of the historical/myth question, so I cannot take any off this list as possessing irrelevant academic credentials.

Those writers with academic credentials that I am not sure about (but whose work may be just as important as the above) include:

1) Earl Doherty, 2) Richard Carrier, 3) Archaya S., 4) Joseph Atwill, 5) Ken Humphreys, 6) Harold Liedner, 7) Zane Winter, 8) Gary Courtney, 9) Michael Hoffman, 10) Max Rieser

I've taken Bruno Bauer out of the list of deceased mythicist scholars as he was from the 19th century and someone charged that only 19th century scholars believed in the mythicist Jesus position. So, here is the list of deceased 20th century mythicist scholars:

1) Georg Morris Cohen Brandes, 2) John (J.M.) Robertson 3) Bertrand Russell, 4) Joseph McCabe 5) William Wrede, 6) Thomas Whittaker, 7) John E. Remsburg, 8) Arthur Drews, 9) P. L. Couchoud, 10) John Allegro, 11) van den Bergh van Eysinga, 12) Robert Taylor, 13) Joseph Wheless, 14) Peter Jensen, 15) Gordon Rylands, 16) Guy Fau, 17) Mangasar Mugurditch Mangasarian

If anyone would like to add, adjust or suggest more names to the three lists, I would appreciate it.

Sincerely

Philosopher Jay

Vivisector

From what I know of Mack, he considers Jesus to have been a living, breathing human being, who was active in the Galilee/Judea area in the first half of the first century CE, with whom the various quotes and activities listed in the NT (and elsewhere) ultimately came to be associated. I personally consider such a position as absolutely in favor of HJ, but that aside, it raises the question of definitions. How do you define an MJ proponent, and how do you define an HJ proponent?

Regards,

V.

Ben C Smith

So Burton Mack concludes that there was an historical personage named Jesus, and he gets at this historical personage using the Q document allegedly embedded within the gospels, yet somehow his position is more or less mythicist. I feel language has lost its meaning by the time we get this far down the path.

I might suggest, in a small attempt to reclaim the meaning of words, that there is a difference between viewing the gospels as mythical documents and viewing Jesus as a mythical personage.

Ben.

PhilosopherJay

Hi Ben,

Bob Kane, who created Batman, said that he based the character in part on Errol Flynn's performance in "The Adventures of Robin Hood". Errol Flynn was a real historical personage. Should we therefore conclude that Kane believes that Batman is an historical person because Errol Flynn was a real person, or even that Robin Hood may have been a real person and the character of Batman is based on him and therefore historical as well? Almost every fictional character has some loose associations with historical personages, usually modeled on them in one respect or another. This does not make the character and the story any less fictional.

In a similar way, if someone believes that the historical Jesus did not perform miracles, did not preach the vast majority of the things attributed to him and was not arrested and executed, and essentially thinks the Jesus character portrayed in the Gospels is a myth, then I would have to consider this more of a mythicist position then an historical Jesus position.

Would you say that those who believe that Jesus Christ is modeled on Julius Caesar hold an historical Jesus position?



Warmly,

Philosopher Jay