Doug Shaver

Which, as a matter of fact, is what I do believe. If Jesus did not exist, then logically speaking, there could have been no disciples, either. Therefore, somebody else had to invent Christianity.

OK, maybe we're getting somewhere.

That is the view of a majority of scholars in the relevant disciplines, but it is not the view of all of them.

His argument relies on a false dichotomy. He assumes that the only alternative to Jesus of Nazareth as founder is a group of people like those described in the gospels as his disciples. That assumption lacks any justification.

Given an assumption of Jesus' historicity, I have no problem with the notion that he had something to do with Christianity's origins. I just don't think the assumption is consistent with the entire body of relevant evidence.

No Robots

Right. So you eliminate, from my point of view, the first two steps in the chain of causality ie. Christ and the disciples. That leaves what? Paul? Sorry, I don't buy it. Brunner presents at length the reasons for which Paul cannot have initiated Christianity. If we eliminate Paul along with Christ and the disciples, where does that leave us? From my point of view, the first three steps in the causal chain would now be eliminated, with nothing to replace them.

By the way, it strikes me that the Pliny-Trajan correspondence (c. 112) provides the first hard date that the mythicists accept. This has probably been discussed in other threads, but hear me out. By c. 112, Christianity must be sufficiently well-known for imperial authorities to have already established legal precedents for dealing with it, as referred to in the correspondence. But beyond that, the mythicists really have nothing to say about the origins of Christianity. No Christ, no disciples, perhaps no Paul, all is shadows until Pliny. Is that pretty much it?

Toto

The existence of Christianity was well enough known for the Romans to take legal notice c. 112, but the Romans were not very curious about its history or doctrines.

Different mythicists have different things to say. For example, Harold Leidner in The Fabrication of the Christ Myth (or via: amazon.co.uk) has a detailed theory on the origins of Christianity arising from the destruction of the Temple, as a reaction to military defeat. Doherty accepts the usual dating of Paul's letters, so he thinks Christianity can be traced back before 70 CE.

No Robots

My point is that, whether one is a mythicist or not, c. 112 really represents the earliest date for an external datum verifying the existence of Christianity. This being the case, all discussion about Christian origins that involve events earlier than that date are discussions about interpretations, rather than about externally verifiable data. Correct?

Toto

This seems to be true for both mythicists and historicists. I'm not sure what your point is. Mythicists and historicists depend on interpreting the same documentary internal evidence from Christianity.

No Robots

We have some agreement:

1) c. 112 for the first external datum

2) internal evidence only for whatever precedes c. 112

Mythicists often seem to stake their claims on the lack of external evidence for a historical Jesus. Now we clearly see that they have the same situation. For both sides, then, it really comes down to the interpretation of internal evidence. Mythicists should therefore restrict themselves to examining the internal evidence, and stop acting as though the lack of external evidence prior to c. 112 helps their case.

Toto

Except that, if there were some external evidence, mythicism would not be viable. And if you believe in a certain type of historical Jesus, absense of evidence can be taken as evidence of absense. Or at least historicists have to work very, very hard to explain away the absense of evidence.

And I think you have missed a lot of Doherty's arguments if you think that his case is based on a lack of external evidence.

S.C.Carlson

The Pliny letter mentions a person who admitted to being a Christian but denied having been one for a "full twenty years":

Still others there were, whose names were supplied by an informer. These first said they were Christians, then denied it, insisting they had been, "but were so no longer"; some of them having "recanted many years ago," and more than one "full twenty years back." These all worshiped your image and the god's statues and cursed the name of Christ.

Shouldn't this push the date to back to the early 90s?

Stephen

Toto

That depends on how reliable this second hand information is - was that person engaged in hyperbole?

But I don't see the point of quibbling over 20 years. It appears that we have external evidence of people called Christians after the Temple fell in 70, and before the Bar Kochba rebellion. This is consistent with most mythicist and historicist theories, and is only a problem for those who think Jesus was invented in the 4th century.

Doug Shaver

No, it does not leave Paul as the cause of Christianity. It leaves Paul as the first Christian of whose existence and whose beliefs we know anything about.

Since I don't believe, and have never argued, that Paul initiated Christianity, Brunner's reasons for that conclusion are irrelevant.