lpetrich

As to Lucretius being a myth, there's the problem in that he didn't become the central figure of a cult that worshipped him as their lord and savior. And such people tend to get lots of myths created about them.

Also, Paul seemed remarkably indifferent to the historical Jesus Christ for someone who had written a LOT about him. When he visited Jerusalem, did he ever try to visit the spot where his Lord and Savior had been crucified? Etc. etc. etc.

No Robots

Are you saying that mythicists should be free from attack on this board? Are you saying that any attack on mythicism amounts to "Christian apologetic"?

Doug Shaver

However one defines "historical Jesus," there either was or was not one. The question of how accurately the gospels record what he said and did during his lifetime would be a matter of degree.

To my way of thinking, for there to have been a historical Jesus, he would have to have been an early-first-century itinerant Galilean preacher who was executed by Roman officials and whose followers, inspired by his teachings, founded a religious movement that evolved into what we now call Christianity. Anyone not meeting that minimal description, whatever else may have been his role in Christianity's origins, would be too dissimilar from the central character of the gospels to be considered the historical Jesus.

It is true that except for inerrantists, there is a broad consensus both in and out of academia that the gospels are not 100 percent historically accurate. It is also true that within that consensus, judgments vary -- from "most" to "almost none" -- as to how much of them is accurate or, if not accurate, at least based on or inspired by historical fact, however tenuous the connection between the narratives and the reality of Jesus' life and teachings. People whose views fall anywhere within that consensus are historicists. A few of us have rejected the consensus. We believe that there is no connection at all between the gospels and any historical fact about Christianity's origins.

People who think that the gospels are only partly myth, even if they think the part is 99 percent, are considered historicists. What is called the mythicist position is that Jesus was entirely mythical, that the gospels have zero basis in historical fact. The majority of professionals do not accept that position.

RUmike

I wasn't offended. I would simply describe it as "scholarship". The term weak was unnecessary on your part. The JS's purpose is not to deal with the historicity of Jesus -- it is already agreed upon by all its members, and since the point of the seminar is to create conensus, they already had it on that issue. In my opinion the JS does have some "balls" when it comes to making conclusions about HJ compared to other scholars. For example in that paragraph alone, they are willing to say Joseph had a human father, Jesus was probably born in Nazareth with no mention of Bethlehem, Jesus' cures were pyschosomatic, and the resurrection had nothing to do with a belief in a physical body or empty tomb but rather visionary experiences.

Spanky

I don't know, maybe you could read that again and tell us.:huh: I didn't get that conclusion from Spin's sentence.

No Robots

Stating this is fine, just like it is perfectly fine to say that extraterrestrials visit Earth. Attempts to "prove" these propositions, however, are liable to thorough-going attack. "Proofs" regarding UFOs are relatively harmless, but distorted "proofs" regarding Jesus are dangerous, as we know from history. That is why mythicism cannot be left uncriticized.

dog-on

RUmike, thanks. I will concede the point regarding my choice of wording. I'm literally surrounded by "true believers" in my daily life, so I may be a little too emotionally involved. In the future, I'll try to keep any unnecessary hyperbole to a minimum.

Ted Hoffman

Defending the HJ hypothesis and asserting its correctness based on the numbers of scholars who support it (hence defending an institution, not an idea) or based on its precedence in chronology (which is fallacious) is akin to Christian apologetics. Whether the individual engaging in this is aware of it or otherwise and whether that individual is an atheist or otherwise. Because he/she ends up furthering the interests of a group (Christians), or an institution (the Church) at the expense of objective inquiry on an historical question.

Recall that wrapped on the mantle of this field is a group of individuals with confessional interests. Christian doctrine presumes that a HJ existed. HJ Scholarship treats a HJ as an axiom then tries to defend it. Christian apologetics is the branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines.
Thus taking a HJ as a given without bothering to prove it historically, is apologetics. And so is "mere rhetoric" like - "it's absurd", "[Doherty] fails in his understanding of Paul", "You can't be kind to fools",

Hence:

spin

No-one is free from "attack" here. I would like to see more effort to be constructive over the issue. As it is, people simply draw lines and snipe from behind their barriers and I can't see that it is very useful. When it deals with the mythicist issue, the weapons of the non-mythicist are often supplied by christian sources. That's called "sleeping with the enemy."

If our goals here include trying to understand what happened, quite often we find that what happened isn't as clear as we have often been led to believe. A simple example is that people tout "James the brother of the lord" in Galatians as a certain reference to Jesus's brother, and it is so simple and apparent, yet this is assumption laden. Does the phrase "brother of the lord" really mean "brother of Jesus" for Paul, or does it mean, for example, "member of a religious organization centered on Yahweh"? The phrase by itself may have been clear to Paul's readership, but to us we only have the apologetic interpretation. Our views of the birth narrative are based on the clever weaving together of two accounts that rarely agree with each other. The apologetic behind these issues and many more will not aid in getting to know what happened.

All foundations must be tested before you try to build a new house on old foundations. I would like us all to question our own assumptions when we enter into unchartered territory and not just equate it with what we've already been taught. All analyses will have to be provisional. We know that we have to change our positions, if the evidence is truly against us, but we need to get to that point (if necessary), when we've worked hard on an issue and have trouble cutting our losses.

On the mythicist position I think it is good to keep the issue honest. People have fairly complained that some people here assume the mythicist position and argue from it without having done much to test it one way or another. You can't not call something crap when it flaunts all the rules of evidence, but you can hold back when you're projecting modern assumptions onto the past. That would be your problem, which would only drag the discussion down.

I'd like to see where the mythicist position leads, but the issue is extremely complex when we have to rely on conventional datings for source texts, despite the fact that they often can't be dated at all. Dating is a big issue here. People tout old scholarship about a text called P52 a tiny fragment of John often said tohave been from 125 CE on palaeographic grounds, despite the fact that the real old dating -- from memory -- is 150 plus or minus 25 years and there is a lot of disagreement over the dating with scholars giving dates as late as the end of the 2nd. century for various epigraphic reasons.

As the mythicist position stands at the moment, it has no resilient apologetic to protect it. It has no books of easy answers. It hasn't had enough coherent advocacy to establish itself this way. Textual conflicts have been dealt with by christians for well over 1500 years and the responses now are relatively easy. For centuries the greatest thinkers in the west were christian monks.

What about the mythicist? No heritage. Often because the mythicist had no support, no monastery, no comrades at arms, no literary tradition to call upon. Porphyry's works were nearly all destroyed. Celsus was a good pagan believer. Julian didn't have much opportunity to do anything in his three years of liberty as emperor. Giordano Bruno never had an opportunity to work his ideas out any more clearly, getting himself burnt at the stake. Deviant analyses in a world of repressive tolerance can be a breath of fresh air. Give them a chance if they adhere to good scholarship.


spin

Geetarmoore

Not all