spin

It would probably be correct to call him the Sanitized Jesus. You clean out all the stuff you can't bring yourself to swallow and keep the rest.

spin

... it's just that some can swallow more than others.

ApostateAbe

Not a lot of objection to that. I also believe in the sanitized Alexander the Great, the sanitized Caesar Augustus, and the sanitized George Washington. I have heard all of the objections to that line of thought, but those objections typically miss the point. The point is that it is all a matter of explaining the evidence best, not a matter of trusting or distrusting the evidence. To explain the evidence best, it is normally (not always) better to explain extraordinary claims of myths as mere myths and awkward claims of myths as probable realities. So you can either be sanitary, or you can chuck out everything in the refrigerator when you smell something you don't like and thereby starve.

aa5874

There are no such things as santized Alexander the Great, sanitized Caesar Augustus, and sanitized George Washington.

There are NO Quests for the historical Alexander the Great, the historical Caesar Augustus and historical George Washington. These are NOT figures of FAITH, like Satan, the God of the Jews, the angel Gabriel, Jesus, Adam and Eve and Romulus and Remus.

The fact that there is a Quest for an Historical Jesus is simply because the Jesus of Nazareth of the NT is a figure of FAITH--born of a Ghost and virgin without a human father.

We know the human fathers of Alexander the Great, Caesar Augustus and George Washington.

People are still looking for a Father for a historical Jesus of Nazareth but there is NO history of such a thing in all antiquity.

Sanitized Myth is NOT history--just PURE Mythology.

rlogan

With all due respect to spin I would go further to say that "historicism" is significantly different from removing all of the untenable and keeping what remains. First of all, look at their strategy: if they actually posit a historical Jesus in positive terms it is a mere sentence of "Itinerant preacher": something that cannot be falsified, and puts anyone else in the "prove the negative" position. Prove there was no itinerant preacher in the first century. This is not science. This is not assembling evidence to demonstrate the existence of something. It is positing something there is no attestation to whatsoever.


Because if you remove the miracles, the ridiculous birth narrative, and etc. it isn't revealing a "core" of some itinerant preacher. If we remove the non-rabbit elements of Peter the Rabbit, we are not left with a historical core rabbit. Nobody doubts the existence of either rabbits or itinerant preachers because there is ample evidence of them, but that evidence comes from different sources and not from the myth of Peter the Rabbit or from the Bible. And that's what you have to do if you are following science in the case of Jesus. Josephus makes note of a couple dozen Jesus' in his works. Do historicists look at any of these? Of course not. Because none give you a big-bang Jesus with disciples to produce a Holy Bible.

This business of stripping away exaggerations is not done with any of the figures Apostate Abe mentions. First of all he disengenuously waves his hands at this instead of pointing to some particular writing he claims exaggerates. We have coins with their image upon them and boatloads of other physical evidence, writings from numerous contemporary authors - there simply is no comparison because there is no doubt about their existence.

The actual process of so-called historicists involves substitution. That which is substituted has no witness to it whatsoever. It is a deception, a hoax, to say that the Bible is positive attestation to anything once you have removed all the mythical elements. These elements are so fundamental to the story that once removed, there is no story. Just as there is no rabbit at the core of Peter the Rabbit. Resurrection is the core tenet of Christianity and the Bible is its witness. All of the miracles, the fulfillment of prophecy, is so central to the story that there is no story without it. Removing the untenable elements is removing the core. It is a hoax to pretend you are removing unessential elements to arrive at the essential.

This is especially important as we review amongst the historical Jesus figures a candidate who was tortured by Pilate and released as a harmless crank for running around screeching "Woe is Israel". He is killed by a projectile thrown by a siege engine in the Roman assault on Jerusalem in 70 CE. Or the Jesus who led guerillas in hit-and-run attacks against the Romans, captured in a deception of parley. There are multiple candidates all along a spectrum from the relatively mundane to the son of a high priest.

This historical Jesus who is posited represents a sufficient threat to the establishment to warrant trial and execution - but it is not a figure arrived at from any positive attestation. Instead it is a substitution of a non-attested figure for what in reality is an impeachment of the Biblical sources altogether. We have millions of actual rabbits and we have abundant source material for the real historical figures mentioned above. Their existence is based on positive attestation and evidence. Not a substitution without source.

In short, historicists substitute. What they substitute with is non-falsifiable, and it is without source. You are not retaining the historical elements of Peter the Rabbit to arrive at the existence of a bunny.


From Gurugeorge:

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to Don being a closet mythicist. I'm quite open to it, notwithstanding it is the stupidest assertion I have ever heard in light of his relentless attacks on mythicism and the abundance of logical fallacies and outright disengenuous tactics.

One disengenuos tactic would be to go on a message board claiming on the one hand that you are not posting on message boards, using someone else's profile to accomplish same, as a means of excusing one's self from inquiry. But on the other hand claiming to support something that is not even in existence. I do see the objective, which is to pretend sympathy towards mythicism, but without any actual reasoning besides a nonexistent source. My God, to feign acceptance of something not even in existence in favor of something that does exist like Doherty's book - WTF? Naturally it leaves open the option of claiming disappointment with whatever Carrier comes up with and the feigned disappointment in not quite convincing this particular apologist of his beliefs.

If one is sympathetic to mythicism then the reasons are both abundant and obvious. So much so that refusing to mention them is proof one is disengenuous in the assertion of being open to it. What can Carrier possibly come up with that hasn't been discussed ad nauseum already? Or is it the fallacy that when someone with a PhD says it, suddenly it has credence? That's the great thing about this kind of underhanded tactic - you don't actually have to account for yourself.

ApostateAbe

OK. To be clear, spin's objection was that people in my camp believe in a "sanitized" Jesus, where we throw out what we can't stomach and keep the rest. My counterpoint is that this is really the best way to make sense of history with very many historical characters. For example, there was a myth about George Washington, taught as fact in my Christian elementary school, that he was bulletproof--that Indians could point and shoot their guns at the man and he would never be struck. The George Washington we believe in is the sanitized George Washington. With ancient history, the problem is more pronounced, because first-hand testimonies are rare and sometimes all we have are stories that contain improbabilities. If all the information we had about George Washington was a handful of myths like that one, then we may be able to infer that George Washington existed as a respected military leader (if that really is the best explanation). Your objection is that there is far more conclusive proof for George Washington than for Jesus, and I agree. But, one way or the other, it doesn't make much sense to trumpet the objection that I believe in a "sanitized" Jesus. I think mythicists should do history the same way historians do history, or at least a way of history that really makes sense, and not do it their own special way to suit their own conclusions.

Toto

Eh? Richard Carrier is a professional historian with a PhD from an elite university. You can't deny that he does history the way historians do history. It is the Historical Jesus industry that has invented its own methods to reach its preferred conclusions.

And you, with no training in history, have invented your own methods and you have your own unique views on common sense and probability. But you have no validation of those methods of views except that they reach the conclusions you prefer.

ApostateAbe

OK, to be clear, do you agree or disagree with the method of history I formulated (Reciprocal Expectations)?

Roo Bookaroo

Zwaarddijk
The real sadness is to see "scholarship" in subtle borrowings from authentic researchers then transmuted by free-flowing speculations. If Doherty is so supportive of the digestible romances of Murdock, it is because, in spite of their different styles, Doherty has recognized in Dorothy a sister-soul.

Around 1995, Murdock started complementing her treatise on the apology of New Ageism with a critique of Christianity — these two polemics going hand in hand — which she posted on the Internet as her essay on “The Origins of Christianity and the Quest for the Historical Jesus Christ”, summarizing all the readings she had selected in the published past scholarship, and soliciting criticisms, which she incorporated into a new book, "The Christ Conspiracy".

Doherty saw an open golden door for a similar exercise, posting his 1997 article on the "Jesus puzzle", also built on a selection of his readings of previously available scholarly research. All the criticisms were also fed into a new book. And the two books of those two popularizers came out at the same time, in 1999. With dithyrambic reviews on Amazon from each one for the other.
They have recognized in themselves kindred spirits and given support to each other's speculations ever since.

So, for comic relief, here is the crowing song of a master of suppositions, that some Queensland apostle, from his neck of the woods, propagandizes as the nec plus ultra manipulation of historicity denial — with my thanks to Gilbert and Sullivan:

I am the very model of a modern Mythicist-General,
I conjure information mythical, spiritual and theological,
I know the books of G.A. Wells, and I quote the epistles historical
From Paul to Revelation, in order categorical;
I'm very well acquainted, too, with matters problematical,
I understand parables, both the simple and allegorical,
About the Mark conundrum I'm teeming with a lot of suppositions,
With many cheerful facts from free-flowing divagations.

ALL:
With many cheerful facts from free-flowing divagations.

GENERAL:
I'm very good at mixing and diluting conclusions;
I learnt the Greek names of ideas of delusions:
In short, in matters terrestrial, mythological, and celestial,
I am the very model of a modern Mythicist-General.

ALL:
In short, in matters terrestrial, mythological, and celestial,
He is the very model of a modern Mythicist-General..

GENERAL:
I know our fantasy history, Enoch, Daniel and Isaiah’s ascension;
I can solve Hebrew acrostics, I've a pretty taste for comparison,
I drown in whirlpools all the crimes of historicists,
With spinning cobwebs I can trap flying apologists;
I can tell undoubted manuscripts from forgery and interpolation,
I know the roaring chorus from the quibbling New Oxonian!
Then I can recite an argument of which I've read the content before,
And paraphrase subtle ideas from past scholarship galore.

ALL:
And paraphrase subtle ideas from past scholarship galore.

GENERAL:
Then I can write a new article in bewildering English,
And learn cute new words to give my swampy prose polish
In short, in matters terrestrial, mythological, and celestial,
I am the very model of a modern Mythicist-General.

ALL:
In short, in matters terrestrial, mythological, and celestial,
He is the very model of a modern Mythicist-General.

GENERAL:
In fact, when I know what is meant by "imitatio" and "variatio",
When I can tell at sight a tsunami from a juggernaut “controversio”
When such conundrums as Persian magis at Luxor are no surprise,
And when I know precisely what is meant by "Lazarus, arise",
When I have learnt what progress has been made in literary borrowing,
When I know more of gabbing rhetorics than a bartender in training--
In short, when I've of winning polemics a real mastery
You'll say a better Mythicist-General has never been so blustery.

ALL:
You'll say a better Mythicist-General has never been so blustery.

GENERAL:
For my scholarly supremacy, though I'm plucky and adventury,
Has only been consecrated as the summum of the century;
But still, in matters terrestrial, mythological, and celestial,
I am the very model of a modern Mythicist-General.

ALL:
But still, in matters terrestrial, mythological, and celestial,
He is the very model of a modern Mythicist-General.

Roo Bookaroo, Jan. 9, 2013

Toto

We've been through this before. Your "expectations" have no controls. You have just taken your preferred solution and labeled it the most probable, based on your subjective feelings.

All you have is a method of justifying what you want to believe.