Switch89

Dr. April DeConick, the Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University, wrote a blog post which I found very interesting. In it, she says

"...I have continued to learn, and I am now in the position of saying that Norman Perrin's book might be fantastic, but it is bankrupt, as is the Jesus Seminar Jesus. This Jesus is nothing more than a constructed person who exists only in our imaginations. I say this not because I am a myther. In fact, I think that the myther position cannot be maintained, because parallels between Jesus' myth and other ancient myths tell us nothing about whether or not he lived as a real person. It only tells us that ancient people cast their memories of Jesus into mythological narratives and schema that were part of their culture and minds. Rather I say this because I have come to realize over the years that the methodology and the assumptions of the methodology that were used to construct Perrin's Jesus and the Jesus Seminar Jesus are bankrupt."


Read my entire response here:
http://aigbusted.blogspot.com/2009/0...-response.html

mountainman

Dear Switch89,

Deconick has some interesting things to say.
An interesting response (with which I agree) that concludes ...
But how do you explain Eusebius?
Have you read Eusebius' "history"?
Are you calling Eusebius dishonest?
Or what?


Best wishes,


Pete

Doug Shaver

In his day, there were lots of stories circulating within the Christian community about how their religion got started. He wrote down the ones he liked.

Some of it.

Not without good evidence. I understand that some people think there is plenty of evidence, but since I haven't seen it, I must reserve judgment. In the meantime, I think ordinary Christian gullibility explains everything that needs explaining.

Switch89

[QUOTE=mountainman;5776869]What are talking about? I referenced Ken Olson's article, and Ken theorizes that Eusebius invented the Flavium. I'm not totally sure if Ken is right, but I wouldn't put it past Eus, given the fact that he quoted a letter from Jesus "without a hint of skepticism" according to R. Carrier. And no I have not read Eusebius.

I think it is possible that Eusebius got a hold of copy of Josephus which had the TF, and Eus used it uncritically, other scribes heard about the TF (which he quoted in one or two of his works) and they inserted it into their copies of Josephus.

aa5874

Well, read Church History first before you make claims about what you think is possible. You may find that there is no evidence whatsoever to support what you thought was possible.

Justin Martyr, writing about the middle of the 2nd century, was aware of Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus and never onced used any passage from the writings of Josephus to prove that the creature called Jesus Christ was ever on earth.


And what else would you suggest that scribes wrote by mistake in Josephus or any the writings of antiquity?

lpetrich

Seems to me that mainstream scholarly opinion is gradually moving toward Jesus agnosticism, even if not outright Jesus mythicism.

The opinion that Jesus Christ was likely historical but surrounded with a lot of mythology is much like a common opinion on King Arthur. There's been a LOT of argument over who the historical King Arthur had been, and how much of his history has been remembered in Arthurian lore.

A common rebuttal to Jesus mythicism has been that every mainstream scholar believes that JC had been historical, but those rebutters are likely to find little consolation from the view that JC is about as historical as King Arthur.

And I think that reviewing the King Arthur question could be a good exercise for those concerned with the historical-JC question, because the stakes have been much lower with King Arthur than with JC. There isn't a big religion of Arthurism based on Arthurian lore, a religion that hails King Arthur as the greatest person who ever lived, a religion whose followers feel wronged by criticism of that lore.

Finally, someone has calculated King Arthur's Lord Raglan score, and has found a value of 19 -- close to Jesus Christ's Lord Raglan score. Which is another point of comparison.

mountainman

Dear Doug,

It is additionally obvious that some of the stories which he liked and included in his history did not exist, and that he simply forged them (for example into Josephus). On the basis of such irresponsible and fraudulent actions we have a right to ask the question "What else did Eusebius make up" or to take this line of questioning to its logical limit "How much invention is there in Eusebius' "christian history".

Ken Olsen on the "TF", Philosopher Jay and others on the shadowy Heggesipus. False references to inscriptions on statues on a bridge over the Tiber.... Additionally we know he was Constantine's "minister" for monotheistic propaganda, and was well paid and well "looked after" for his services.


Everything except the critical question of chronology: When did the ordinary christian gullibility of the plain and simple religion actually commence in the field of ancient history.

Best wishes,


Pete

mountainman

Dear switch89,

I too am more or less convinced that jesus did not exist in an historical sense in the first century as claimed. So I am in agreement with the conclusion at your blog site. However, in order to try and prove this claim: that Jesus did not actually exist in the first century (as claimed) we need to deal with the evidence in our possession which makes the claims that he did exist. This evidence is bundled up and called "Eusebius" --- it is only Eusebius who provides the critical account of history for the period of the first three centuries prior to Nicaea.

We need to be able to show that the evidence which Eusebius claimed to have gathered up and collated in the fourth century, is not to be regarded as any form of integrous historical account, but in fact is to be regarded in the genre of theological romance, equipped with large numbers of forged documents. Here is a collation of other articles on Eusebius in addition to Ken Olsens.

I hope I have explained this clearly.
Best wishes,


Pete

the_cave

I am mostly intrigued that "myther" is a term now being used (and publicly) by tenured professors of Biblical history.

mountainman

It is also notable what tenured professors of "Biblical "history" and "NT "history" do not talk about; namely the archaeological evidence for anything in the first three centuries of "The Myth".