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01-15-2007, 10:36 AM | #1 | |||||||||||
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Take your shot: Guignebert's refutation of the mythicist case
Hi,
In a previous post, I was wondering why Earl Doherty, in his Responses to Critiques of the Mythicist Case, didn’t address the critique made by Charles Guignebert in his book Jesus, published in 1933 (first French edition). Perhaps he deemed those 6 pages or so were not worth mentioning, or that he had already addressed the main points through his other critiques, or whatever. In France anyway, the mythicist debate is considered “case closed” by scholars since Guignebert’s works. That’s why I thought it would be useful, for informative reason at least, to post his main arguments on this board. I know Guignebert’s Jesus was translated into English, but it doesn’t seem that easy to get a hold on. NB: Sorry for the grammatical mistakes in the translations of the excerpts... Guignebert starts his first chapter “the historical existence of Jesus” by a summary of the mythicist case since Dupuis and Volney, mentionning Bruno Bauer and his followers, Jensen, Kalthoff, Robertson, Smith and Drews. He then proceeds to criticize their specific theses. The main problem, he says, is that they surmise a lot without any substantial elements to back up their hypotheses. Couchoud, for example, Quote:
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01-15-2007, 12:32 PM | #2 | |||||||
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From the introductory paragraphs of Guignebert's Jesus that I could read for free from questia, I gather that Guignebert starts off with the assumption that someone was the inspiration for Christianity, and that it was a person named Jesus, and any mythicist argument has to provide a better explanation. I see no reason to assume this, or to assume that arguing against the various mythicist theories prevalent in 1933 is a positive argument for a historical Jesus.
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Then we have: Quote:
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I don't see anything new in the rest of the argument. |
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01-15-2007, 12:41 PM | #3 | |
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Quote:
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01-15-2007, 12:45 PM | #4 | |
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Quote:
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01-15-2007, 12:47 PM | #5 | |
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Thanks for your comments. Jeff. |
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01-15-2007, 01:40 PM | #6 | |
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I forgot the "almost;" there are a handful.
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01-15-2007, 02:20 PM | #7 |
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01-15-2007, 02:29 PM | #8 |
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Completely stupid statement, ignoring the works of several French writers of the 20th century. Go, do your homework instead of misrepresenting the French authors.
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01-15-2007, 02:35 PM | #9 | |
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And if Jesus had existed in the time frame described by the gospels, I would expect at least one follower or observer to have written something that later Christians would have treasured and preserved, with some sort of personal information. |
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01-15-2007, 02:37 PM | #10 |
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