ApostateAbe

I am uncomfortable with the rising popularity of the "Jesus myth" idea among skeptics. I will first give my perception of the debate, and then I will explain why I take the position that I do.

"Jesus myther" is defined as someone who believes that Jesus Christ was 100% myth. "Jesus historicist" is defined as someone who believes that Jesus Christ once existed, though perhaps largely mythologized since then.

Most atheists on this forum seem to think that Jesus started as a myth and never existed. This was caused largely by Earl Doherty's website, jesuspuzzle.com. It remains the focus of "Jesus myther" or "Jesus mythologist" thought. The idea was further promoted by the movie, "The God Who Wasn't There," which has the Jesus myther theme at its focus.

It is an elegant idea that fits with the way of thinking of those who oppose Christianity, especially atheists. It is an appealing theory for several reasons:

--> God exists only as myth and the character of Jesus claimed to be God, so it seems appropriate that Jesus existed only as myth.
--> The easiest way to make the case that Jesus was not God is to make the case that he never even existed.
--> It undercuts the foundation of Christianity.

Besides that, the reason so many atheists are Jesus mythers is because the only opposing side loud enough to be heard is the camp of the Christian apologists. The camp of the non-Christian Jesus historicists is too quiet. It doesn't even have a website to make its case against the Jesus mythers, unlike the two other camps.

But the majority of non-Christian New Testament scholars seems to side with the theory of a historical Jesus. On this point, I am relying on the authority of the many contributors to the "Jesus-Myth" article on Wikipedia, who say, "No peer-reviewed work advocating the Jesus Myth exists and the theory has had little impact on the consensus among New Testament academics of Jesus' historicity." A web article by Christopher Price titled, "The Historiography of the Jesus Myth," surveys eight secular New Testament scholars who not only reject the Jesus myth but also strongly dismiss it as highly unreasonable and motivated by agendized scholarship.

That isn't the main reason I am not a Jesus myther (it is an argument from authority, after all). I was fully convinced once I reflected on the false prophecy of Jesus. According to all three synoptic gospels of the Bible, Jesus told those around him that he would make his rapturous second coming from the kingdom of God with destructive signs from the heavens, a trumpet call, and a gathering of angels--all within the lifetime of his listeners and his own generation. See Matthew 24:34, Mark 9:1, and Luke 9:27. So my theory is that Jesus once existed as a cult leader.

Since the prophecy went unfulfilled, this caused a disturbance within the Christian cult. Evidence of this is seen in 2 Peter 3:3-8.

"First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, "Where is this 'coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." [...] But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

The cult had to defend itself against scoffers who pointed out the apparently false prophecy and laughed. So the prophecy was resolved in one way similar to a sort of explanation common in many overdue doomsday prophecies in cults today and throughout history. The original prophecy was redefined.

This would not happen to a cult that had a mythical man as its central authority. Unless the Christian cult leaders had rocks for brains, a fictional Jesus would not say, "This generation shall not pass, till all these things [various miracles of the second coming] be fulfilled." If Jesus was simply a figure of religious doctrine, then the cult recruits would have been told that he existed in the somewhat distant past, or the recruits would wonder why they don't get to meet the man.

Perhaps the mythers would contend that this prophecy didn't appear immediately, but it seems equally implausable that an apparently false prophecy would somehow naturally evolve through myth. Religious myths, like biological organisms, evolve through natural selection. Beneficial mutations are passed on while non-beneficial mutations fail to reproduce. Christian apologists today have trouble resolving this false prophecy. The false prophecy of Jesus is analogous to a vestigial organ--something that originally had a beneficial design but has since become a nuisance.

There is a reason why the popularity of the Jesus myth theory bothers me. It is unreasonable, it gives Christian apologists a leg to stand on, and it makes Christianity's critics look unskeptical. The most useful proverb for skeptics is, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." Since the Jesus character resembles a genuine cult leader so much, the claim that he never existed becomes extraordinary. But the evidence presented is not extraordinary--it is typically tangential and speculative, such as arguments from silence or minor similarities to other figures of myth.

I know that this whole debate is complex and convuluted. If you would like to make a case that Jesus was really only a myth, start by explaining the false prophecy of Jesus.

Amaleq13

Even if you take into consideration that this prophecy may have originated with the author of Mark who, if the majority of scholars are correct, wrote his story shortly after Jerusalem was destroyed?

Surely we can't blame him for considering that to be clear evidence that The End Times were upon his generation and I'm sure he wasn't alone in thinking that.

When the other two authors decided to rewrite Mark's story, could they just delete this prophecy? They seem to have been determined to keep as much of the original as they considered appropriate to their own beliefs but it is important to note that, well before 2 Peter, a similar admonition against taking that original prophecy as the starting of a stopwatch was added:

But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. (Mt 24:36)

I tend to assume a historical figure "behind" the myths but I'm not convinced that this failed prophecy has to be assumed to be a genuine saying from his mouth.

ApostateAbe

Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD. Jesus supposedly died in 30 AD, and by 70 AD, Jesus' generation would have passed. People did not live to an old age in that time.

The admonition you cited, Mt 24:36, is not unique to Matthew. It is also in Mark and Luke.

Read this:

Mark 13

23So be on your guard; I have told you everything ahead of time.

24"But in those days, following that distress,
" 'the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
25the stars will fall from the sky,
and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'

26"At that time men will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. 27And he will send his angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heavens.

28"Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. 29Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near, right at the door. 30I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. 31Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

32"No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. 33Be on guard! Be alert! You do not know when that time will come. 34It's like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with his assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.

35"Therefore keep watch because you do not know when the owner of the house will come back--whether in the evening, or at midnight, or when the rooster crows, or at dawn. 36If he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. 37What I say to you, I say to everyone: 'Watch!'"

The message is that Jesus will fulfill the prophecies of the Messiah and lead of the armies of Heaven within the time of his own generation, but you just don't know specifically when he will do that. It is a smart and calculated statement made by a cult leader who wanted to keep the recruits on their toes in anticipation. It is not a likely to be a prophecy created in 70 AD when Jesus' generation was already dead, or dying at best.

Toto

The prophecy might have been written in terms of a hypothetical generation around 30 CE, but we have no record of it before Mark, which we can reliably date to between 69 and 150 CE. If Mark was written as an allegory, the readers would understand Jesus' prophecy as aimed at their own time, not as a recorded failed prophecy from a few generations ago.

ApostateAbe

So you say that it may have originated as an allegory. I am not familiar with that theory.

mikem

It seems to me that these verses are about the coming of the kingdom rather than the coming of the Son of Man, which the church later took to refer to Jesus Himself. Whether Jesus believed himself to be the Son of Man is a matter of much debate. Although Mark 9:1 follows on from a saying about the coming of the Son of Man, is does seem to be separate from it (see Matthew 16:28, Luke 9:27 which clearly treat it as a separate matter). Taking the gospels as a whole, Jesus message focusses on being ready for the kingdom, which he probably believed to be imminent. Paradoxically of course, it would appear that he also warned against indulging in speculation about dates. I take Matthew 24:36 to originate with Jesus. It seems unlikely that words that would suggest his inferiority to God would be be attributed to him at a later date when he was regarded as a divine being. The saying fits nicely with the saying about it being up to the Father to decide who sits on Jesus right and left in the kingdom (Mark 10:40, Matthew 20:23).

But I agree with you that there is a problem here for the mythicists. And it doesn't just concern one or two sayings, but a whole raft of sayings about the kingdom. Someone once said about the development of Jesus original teaching that "the proclaimer of the message of the kingdom himself became the message that was proclaimed".

ApostateAbe

Interesting. I was unaware that there was a debate over what Jesus meant when he mentioned the "Son of man." It seems obvious to me that he was talking about himself, and I can't fathom who else he might be talking about. The "Son of man" could refer only to the Messiah, and Jesus and his cult pretended to fulfill the Messianic prophecies.

Amaleq13

Correct and we can assume Mark's audience knew this as well. As Toto has suggested, it really makes no sense to understand this message as actually spoken by Jesus 40 years earlier. It is a message to Mark's readers placed in the mouth of Jesus and that is how they would have understood it. This story was not a history lesson but a lesson in Christian faith.

I think you can even find Christians, throughout history until today, interpreting this passage to refer to their generation because they believed they lived in the End Times.

ApostateAbe

So Jesus was supposedly speaking to people 40 years into the future? I don't know if that is what you mean, but that doesn't seem to make sense in light of this verse right here:

"But I tell you of a truth, there be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God." -- Luke 9:27

standing here, Jesus said. I take that to mean those standing around Jesus listening to him preach.

This is some wierd stuff, if I understand you right. What happened to Occam's Razor?

Diogenes the Cynic

In Hebrew and Aramaic idom, the phrase "Son of Man" (or more accurately, "son of Adam") was a generic expression for all human beings. It originally had no titular meaning at all, saying "son of Adam" was like saying "man" or "mankind". Daniel described a vision of a "son of Adam" in the clouds , but even if that passage is interpreted Messianically, the phrase is not used as a title for the Messiah, it's only used to indicate that the figure described is a human being.

"Son of Man" is used titularly by Mark but that is no indication that a hypotheical HJ would have necessarily used it so. Some of the "son of Man" sayings make perfect sense (if not more sense) as referring to humans in general rather than the Messiah (e.g. "Jesus said to him, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the sky have nests, but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head").