Toto

Yes I do. It is an ad hominem argument that avoids the issue.
Zeitgeist was a conspiracy film, not especially anti-religion AFAIK (I haven't seem any part of it.) The God Who Wasn't There was explicitly about mythicism. Mythicism was a small part of Religulous .

Richard Carrier was a leader in anti-religious secularism well before he took the Jesus Myth theory at all seriously.

I gather you have not listened to the BBC program.

Clivedurdle

I can't make sense of the above, unless "a historical Jesus" should read "a mythical Jesus".

andrewcriddle

modern mythicists may or may not be gnostics.

However I don't think that is the reason for hostile reactions towards them. (The OP is not explicit but I presume that reactions means hostile reactions.) Gnostics nowadays have a broadly popular image particularly in academic circles. Being thought gnostic would not in itself provoke hostility.

Andrew Criddle

andrewcriddle

The argument is that if there was a historical Jesus then Christianity is not a legitimate development of the life and teaching of the historical Jesus.

If one (improbably) postulates a historical Jesus utterly different from the Jesus of the NT then the argument seems valid. Otherwise it becomes IMO more an issue of theological debate, (legitimate and illegitimate development), than historical evidence.

Andrew Criddle

DCHindley

Most Christians today, even many scholars, would not even know how to define "gnostic." As described by the earliest heresiologists, they all appear to have worldviews in which the path to fullness of the true God or godhead can be discovered through clues hidden within sacred writing of the "God of this world." Everything they did was intended to help them pass through the heavens to the abode of God.

They had come to reject the God of the Jews on the assumption that he is not anything close to the One of the philosophers. They saw him as an imperfect image of the True God, through whom the nature of the True God could be traced in the Creator God's sacred writ.

So they needed passwords and codes to get past the angels of the Creator God to the abode of the One. The influence of Plato and those who built upon his view of the universe are unmistakable.

Modern Jesus Mythicists do not detect traces of the nature of a true God in holy writings but reject everything that suggests that Jesus the Christ is part of some sort of divine plan of the God of the Jewish scriptures. They do not attempt to reason out the sources for ideas found in the OT & NT. They cannot even fathom the concept of how such a myth could have started in the first place. Even Marxists have thought this out, who were heavily influenced by Bruno Bauer, but JMs are ignorant of their research.

If he actually existed, they always imagine that he was exactly as portrayed in the NT. By rejecting wholesale any sort of HJ one can imagine, they have eliminated their secret fear that the redemption plan and the morals that go with it might be real. JMs are afraid of the NT Jesus. So, they can not then be considered "gnostics."

Funny though, in the late 70's I remember reading an article in Christianity Today (somewhat conservative with a concentration on mainline church practices and theology) that accused more liberal critics of being modern day "gnostics." We know how the conservatives wave away anything that rocks the traditional understandings of Jesus's role as described in the NT or his teaching.

Ironically, this makes Jesus Mythers no different than the conservative Christians that they despise.

DCH

Clivedurdle

Dali was gnostic!

From an area that got seriously bashed up for thinking in these ways, he successfully subverted many ideas by producing for example


http://www.glasgowlife.org.uk/museum...-Painting.aspx

Interestingly, Gore Vidal in Julian describes Julian going through an initiation ceremony that involved various things happening in a cave and then at dawn going out into the light - now which way was the cave exit facing?

And I wish we would discuss dream and myth far more, instead of being stuck in a strange pingpong land.

ApostateAbe

I did, but I wasn't paying much attention. What parts of it are relevant?

aa5874

Your claim cannot be shown to be true. You do not represent modern Jesus Mythicists.

The fact that there is a Quest for an historical Jesus contradicts you.

It is HJers who do NOT know their Jesus because they have Rejected the Jesus of Faith, the Son of God born of a Holy Ghost--the one who ascended to heaven.

The Jesus of the NT, Ignatius, Aristides, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Origen, Constantine and Eusebius was born of a Ghost and was made public.

Jesus Mythicists merely argue that the Jesus of the Jesus cult is EXACTLY as they described--A Son of a God--A Myth.

HJers refuse to accept that the Jesus of NT was based on Faith and Not on Facts while they simultaneously discredit the story of Jesus as fabrications and embellishments.

Toto

:constern02:

This is the Christian apologists' view of JMs, but doe not describe any mythicist or poster here except perhaps aa5874 - who makes more noise but is not representative of anyone but himself.

Iskander

What is it that you found interesting in the BBC programme?


Salvador Dali