sweetpea7

I appreciate that, Toto. Unfortunately, this thread hasn't really answered my questions, but I am not faulting the participants here for that. Perhaps this was the wrong place to ask it. I think this may be a forum that is best for me to be more of a lurker rather than a participant at this time re: HJ/MJ. People on both sides of the HJ/MJ obviously have strong feelings, and it is hard to have a discussion about any related issue without it becoming a full blown HJ/MJ debate.

aa5874

You mean to say it is impossible that Jesus was just a myth fable like the myth fables of the Greeks and Romans. After all it was the very Greeks and Romans who believed in hundreds of myth fables and characters who believed that Jesus was the Child of a Ghost and God Incarnate.

Even a Christian writer claimed the Jesus story was no different to the myth fables of the Greeks and Romans.

If you are arguing that Jesus was a man then find the evidence to support what you believe because I have found the evidence from antiquity to support my theory.

It is virtually impossible for me to support HJ without credible evidence from antiquity.

Well, you have found the evidence for TROY now please find the evidence for HJ. That is your ONLY option yet you needlessly talk about TROY when you know EXACTLY what you need to do for HJ.

Jaybees

I would say it's not impossible, but the odds do favor the existence of some character named Jesus (or something similar) who went around preaching in the Palestine area some 20 centuries ago, and may hve ended up being exe3cuted.

The Romans did have a jolly habit of crucifying people, and the Jews had a long history of prophets marching up and down the land irritating people. Didn't one of them get taken up to heaven while still alive? And Jesus was a not uncommon name at that time and in that place.

As for the coming back from the dead legend, that's par for culture heroes in many parts of the world.

So, on the basis of all that, I would guess that the Jesus myth had some core of truth to it, if stripped of all the supernatural balderdash.

jgoodguy

Some even believe he arose from nothing.

spin

I'd be curious to understand just what percentage of mainstream religious studies scholars you think are non-christian, sweetpea7. I'd also be curious as to the percentage of religious scholars you think qualify as practising historians. I fear you'll find such a very few non-christian scholars that you can't use the number to reflect a range of worthy non-mainstream r.s. views. And the lack of historians generally doing r.s. doesn't suggest a strong historical tradition in the field.

I don't defend mythicism per se, but I don't see how one can take it off the table through its lack of popularity among the r.s. set. It's not like they have any great reputation for balanced historical analysis. In fact, from what I see, christian scholars have turned their backs on the historical implications of earlier scholarship of the era of Rudolf Bultmann and found ways to continue on the "true path" once again.

It seems to me that they analogy with creationism is misguided and not reflective of either the requisite scholarship or the significance of the status quo positions on either field of study. It is not sufficient to point out the fact that each body of scholars--r.s. & biology--sets the status quo in their fields, but that they are in a position to be able to makes their evaluations. The issue of a historical Jesus is functionally outside the bounds of the expertise of religious scholarship, whose field is the analysis of religious literature.


When was the last time anyone saw a historian's scholarly publication on the existence of Jesus, be it a dedicated book or peer-reviewed article? And we are not interested in a historian's personal view, but a scholarly historical analysis. Has such an analysis ever been done? I have only ever seen subtractive analyses, i.e. assuming initial conditions rather than starting with a clean slate. It's let's see what we are forced to discard, not let's start with nothing and see what we must include. Something that people call mythicism is the starting with nothing. As it has not been reasonably explored by mainstream scholarship, the scholarship itself is lacking. It needs to be able to handle the null hypothesis--as evolutionary biology has done with creationism. Until it can do so, it is of no value in its dismissive judgments of it.

spin

Arising from "nothing" of course is a valid possibility, as I've pointed outfrequently, giving the existence, or better the non-existence of the eponymous founder of Ebionism. Ebion did not exist but that did not stop church fathers from arguing against him, nor his "history" being extended.

judge

You made the claim, not me, and have no evidence.
You need to show it is always out of bounds or retract your claim.
The best you can possibly argue is that it is sometimes out of bounds, but you have no evidence for even that.

judge

Is that the confirmation bias theory?

judge

Im interested if you'll indulge me.
What forms of mythicism would you leave on the table? Which ones do you see as reasonable?
Doherty? Price?...or something else

thanks

maryhelena

spin

Now that is one great piece of writing - if I was giving out stars I'd give you five out of five .