Frank

I watched a great PBS documentary on the old testament last night (really really awesome job). The latest scholarship sums up as follows. There was no mass Exodus (the idea of the Sinai hosting millions of escapees from Egypt is now considered outside the reasonable range of history, after a century plus of archeology, it's been ruled out by mainstream archeologists).

In fact they've even traced the culture where the concept of Yahweh originated from, and it wasn't from a primitive Jewish culture that was always homogoneous. The Shasu were a people who lived in then southern Caanan, now Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia, and according to Egyptians records, one of the places they lived was called Y.H.W. (pehaps pronounced Yahu, or what became Yahweh).

No Exodus, but Kind David probably existed (the evidence seem sufficiently conclusive). The going theory is now that there may have been a very small group who left Egypt, but they weren't Jews, they were Caananite slaves. It's now also believed that what became the Jewish people was actually a smattering of different peoples who united and eventually merged into a single tribe.

There was of course a period (much later) where the Jewish people were taken to Babylon, and this is where the bible is largely put together from earlier sources (but also blending in more newly created myths). For example, the idea of an Abraham is pretty much written off. What scholars believe is that while in Babylon the scribes and priests who wrote what we now know as the Torah, created an Abraham from Ur, which is very close to the location they were exiled in (Babylon and Ur are both in modern Iraq, about an hours drive away from each other). It helped them form and sustain an exile identity (creating a legend about a patriarch who began his mythical journey from a place very near to where they were exiled in, and went on to form the "promised land").

So what do we have left? A messiah and disciples who claimed to see these patriarchs in a mystical vision, who were mythic legends to begin with (or a guy in a cave who saw an angel of the god of an Abraham that never existed in the first place)? :shrug:

ApostateAbe

Price tends to see things that other scholars don't see in the evidence, and it is in large part due to Price's imagination. It is easy to use your imagination and say, "Yeah, those places in the epistles where the character of Jesus seems to match the character of Jesus in the gospels--they don't really count." It is especially easy for Robert Price, because, if he gave it his best, the resourceful researcher that he is, he could pull out of his hat a hundred different alternative explanations for any single given piece of evidence that would serve the historicist theory. So, it hardly matters what the evidence strongly suggests to everyone else--he concludes that there is an "utter absence of the gospel-story tradition from most of the New Testament Epistles," and, no surprise, mythicism therefore supplies the explanation.

It hardly matters whether or not the theory of a historical Jesus is most plausible, most thorough, most explanatory, most consistent or whatever other advantage. Mythicists have an exponential supply of alternative explanations for all of the evidence, each of them are possible, and, if it is possible for them to accept a historical Jesus, they won't until all of those alternative explanations are roundly debunked.

I'll illustrate using what spin recently posted in another thread. It is a list of the points of evidence seemingly in favor of the conclusion of a historical Jesus, and spin (a Jesus-skeptic, not a mythicist) debunks each of them:
Notice spin's conclusion. Of course, this is just a small sampling of the imaginative explanations that mythicists and Jesus-skeptics prefer. This is what I mean when I say that the bar is set especially high.

Toto

There is no "character" of Jesus in the gospels - no preaching, no miracles, no healing, just a bare reference to a crucifixion and a few other formulaic details.

???

There is an utter absense of the gospel story tradition from most of the epistles, which has been remarked on by every commentator.

But these theories are not in fact plausible, thorough, explanatory, consistent, etc.

I don't think you've been paying attention.

ApostateAbe

I take it you mean, "There is no 'character' of Jesus in the [epistles]."

I take it you think that the crucifixion and the, um, "few other formulaic details" don't count for anything? I think my point will become especially clear when we list what those "few other formulaic details" actually are. So, here is that list again, and I know you have seen it several times already, but this is for Vincent Guilbaud and others. It is where Paul writes about the seemingly physical human Jesus.

• "born of a woman" Galatians 4:4
• "who as to his human nature was a descendant of David" Romans 1:3
• "I saw none of the other apostles--save James, the Lord's brother" Galatians 1:19
• "The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it... In the same way, after supper he took the cup..." 1 Corinthians 11:23-25
• "None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." 1 Corinthians 2:8
• "You suffered from your own countrymen the same things those churches suffered from the Jews, who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out." 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16
• "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried" 1 Corinthians 15:4

spin

This is a fake indication by ApostateAbe's. There is no reference to Jesus in this. The reference to "brother" in Paul indicates that it is generally used for a believer. ApostateAbe simply ignores the evidence here.

All the Pauline human indicators are necessary for Paul's sacrificial religion. Paul, who never met a Jesus, received knowledge of him through a revelation given by god. Paul's religion requires the death of the good man in order to save those who could not be good. This savior had a number of prerequisites.

1. He had to be liable to the same temptations as those he was saving.
2. That meant he had to be human, so he had to be born of a woman.
3. He had to be a descendant of David. (Messianic prerequisite)
4. He had to die. (Naturally)

Paul's Jesus follows from Paul's theology.

Toto

Yes, it's late.

They don't establish a character for Jesus, so that he comes to life on the pages. You wouldn't know Paul's Jesus if you met him in Galilee.

Actually, your point is not clear. :huh: You claimed that there was some sort of match between the character of Jesus in the gospels and Paul's Jesus that Robert M Price should have accepted, and I challenged this. The references to Jesus as a human in Paul are formulaic, and do not establish a character that matches the gospels.

We've gone over all of these before. The 1 Thess reference is almost universally admitted to be a later editorial comment inserted into Paul's letters. Price has written a lengthy argument for the 1 Cor 15 reference also being an interpolation. The others are ambiguous or bare, formulaic mentions that also may be later anti-Marcionite interpolations to bring Paul into conformity with orthodox catholic doctrines.

Steven Carr

As already pointed out, and ignored by you,even Bart Ehrman does not think this is historical, as pointed out in an email by him to me.

But feel free to ignore the opinions of somebody you claim will refute mythicists, when all he has done so far is refute you.

Doug Shaver

Oh, yeah. He doesn't buy the argument that if everybody thinks so, then it must be so. Obviously, the man is a crackpot.

ApostateAbe

You got me on 1 Thessalonians 2:14-16 being an interpolation. I'll have to leave that out. The arguments for interpolation are sound.

"The references to Jesus as a human in Paul are formulaic, and do not establish a character that matches the gospels."

The myths reflected in the Pauline passages in my list are all also found in the canonical gospels. I don't think you really need me to list those gospel passages for you. What is the problem with such correspondence? Too formulaic? :huh:

Toto

There is one point of non-correspondence: some of the gospels describe a biological brother of Jesus named James, but that James was not an apostle.

There is another point of dubious correspondence: Paul refers to the "rulers of this age" who crucified Jesus, and not Pilate or the Jews. (The rulers of this age most likely refers to demon forces that rule the earth.)

Paul refers to Jesus being born of a woman, of the line of David, although Mark does not describe Jesus being born, and Matt and Luke create a lineage from David for Joseph, who was not Jesus' biological father.

Why would anyone assume that the gospels and Paul are referring to the same person, based on this?