Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Toto · 10-28-2008, 12:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

....
Because the Jesus myth posits that all accounts, sayings and doings of the Jesus character are fabrications, including all descriptions of followers, family, interactions with known historical figures, etc. For so many independent sources to fabricate everything of whole cloth would require quite a conspiracy, for which no evidence exists.
t

But there are no independent sources. There were Paul's letters, which were fleshed out by Mark's gospel, which was used as a source by others. How do you get the "so may independent sources" from this?

teamonger · 10-28-2008, 12:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

...
Atheist writer Michael Arnheim: "... Jesus' execution was clearly the cause of acute embarrassment to his followers, so much so that it is impossible to believe that it could have been invented by any of them."
t

Is this the source of the alleged quote?

Is Christianity True? (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Michael Arnheim.

Yes, that's the one. Arnheim was an early read for me that bolstered my skepticism. I no longer think it's a great book, but he's a good example of how an atheist can concede a historical Jesus and still show the fatal flaws of Christianity.

When I see atheists debating the historical Jesus with Christian believers, it bugs me to no end, because the believers are being let off the hook. Instead of having to argue for the extraordinary claims made for this guy (virgin birth, miracles, resurrection, second coming, etc.), they get to argue for the mere historicity of a Galilean preacher/cult leader - not a very extraordinary claim at all. Whatever the merits of the case for the Jesus myth, it is simply a poor strategy when taking on apologists.

In short, the Jesus myth gives apologists the opportunity to look good, especially to people on the fence. At the same time, it merely makes atheists look nutty to those same people.
t

teamonger · 10-28-2008, 12:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Please, before you continue, consider reading Talbert. If you do, I think you'll drop this argument.

That isn't what he says at all. His analysis of the hero biography describes the purpose of such works, and the motivations of the authors. The purpose and motivation had nothing to do with recording history. That doesn't mean they *can't* contain actual history, but it does mean there is no reason to suppose that they do.

So analyzing them as if they were legends, which is what you are doing, is not going to work, because you've started with the wrong genre. To the extent the Gospels contain any actual history, it's just dumb luck.

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

As a non-Christian, I simply propose that the NT be analyzed like any other set of human documents promoting an agenda.

We do not analyze poetry the same way we analyze chemistry texts. To analyze a text, you must first know and understand the genre. That's the failure you're making here. You've started by assuming the authors were attempting to record history. They flat out weren't.

Impasse. From here, it appears you are simply assuming the opposite, that gospel authors could not be attempting to record history as they understood it. I don't see how you can make that assumption.
t

No Robots · 10-28-2008, 12:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

But then don't you know that the word is always singular in the passage?? Obviously it is not logia. Isn't hearing the word hearing Jesus??

The word in Mark = logon.
The Word in the prologue to John = logos.

Two quite different things.

teamonger · 10-28-2008, 12:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

Never said I did "accept the Jesus of the NT". That's what fundamentalists do. As you say, I have accepted some things as plausible and rejected other things as implausible. I find things like the crucifixion far more epistemically probable than the transfiguration, or the virgin birth. If you say all these things are equally plausible and credible, I find your view mystifying. Why must it be all or nothing?

No, I have not used my imagination to fabricate anything about Jesus; some authors certainly do, but I mostly find their speculations tedious.
t

Again, you have failed to understand that all the stories about Jesus in the NT were regarded not only as plausible but as true in antiquity.

Why have you chosen the crucifixion, it was no more plausible than the conception of Jesus or the resurrection and ascension?

You reject his birth, yet you imagine his crucifixion is true, and this you do without any evidence, knowning fully well that the authors wrote fiction about Jesus.

You can be mistaken for a fundamentalist, you believe Jesus was crucified by faith.

Just because people in antiquity considered all the stories true doesn't mean a historian has to take the same all or nothing attitude.

I certainly have no "faith" that Jesus was crucified. If there was sufficent counter-evidence, I would have no problem giving up that assessment.

I reject the virgin birth because the contradictory birth narratives are insufficient evidence for establishing such an epistemically improbable event. Such an extraordinary claim would require extraordinary evidence. The crucifixion of a Jewish rabble-rouser, however, is not an extraordinary claim.
t

teamonger · 10-28-2008, 12:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

Like most mainstream historians, I happen to think those documents can be critically evaluated using careful criteria, so that some valid evidence can be extracted.

This sounds like mumbo-jumbo to make you feel happy in a more critical world. So far, the critical evaluation I have seen has not been based on historical evidence. No-one has shown how you can jump ship from narrative to reality with Jesus.

You didn't answer Minimalist's question: "What evidence?" How do you go from narrative to reality? The task requires some tangible evidence, not this pussyfooting around:

I happen to think those documents can be critically evaluated using careful criteria, so that some valid evidence can be extracted

You can "critically evaluate" a text as much as you like, but, without an outside way in, such as contemporary support, it will always just be text. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

spin

Seems to me that you and other mythicists are looking backwards at the problem. You treat the existence of a Jewish cult leader and his followers as an extraordinary claim to be proved. But given there is nothing epistemically improbable about their mere existence, and given the varied multiple accounts about them, appears to me the burden of proof is on you to show why they didn't exist.

Why is it so important to make these people go away in first place? It seems on some level an atheist overreaction: to go from "NT must be all true" to "NT must be all false" appears to be a pendulum swing. Just an opinion.
t

Toto · 10-28-2008, 01:00 PM

t - spin is not a mythicist.

There is nothing improbable about a Jewish cult leader in 1st c. Palestine - I'm sure there were many. But accepting something as historically proven must involve more than mere possibility. You don't have anything more, or anything that links this cult leader to the later Christian religion.

Please read the paper by Gerd Lüdemann that I linked to. I think it will answer your questions much more authoritatively than I can. (And Lüdemann is not a mythicist.)

teamonger · 10-28-2008, 01:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

I have accepted some things as plausible and rejected other things as implausible.

Is it plausible that Paul and his converts didn't need a real live historical Jesus in order for them to believe?

spin

Not really, given that there were believers around before Paul converted ("pillars"), who apparently shared some historical knowledge about that person, knowledge that he mentions in his writings. Certainly Paul knew real people named James, Peter and John, which other sources say interacted with a historical Jesus. Do you have some reason to think the accounts of those interactions were complete fabrication?
t

Toto · 10-28-2008, 01:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Is it plausible that Paul and his converts didn't need a real live historical Jesus in order for them to believe?

spin

Not really, given that there were believers around before Paul converted ("pillars"), who apparently shared some historical knowledge about that person, knowledge that he mentions in his writings. Certainly Paul knew real people named James, Peter and John, which other sources say interacted with a historical Jesus. Do you have some reason to think the accounts of those interactions were complete fabrication?
t

We have no evidence at all that Paul learned anything about a historical Jesus from the pillars of the Jerusalem church. That is just speculation, or wishful thinking.

teamonger · 10-28-2008, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spamandham

Quote:

Originally Posted by teamonger

I don't know why an oral tradition would necessarily exclude allusions to supposed OT prophecy. If his followers thought he was the Jewish messiah, the development of such allusions in the tradition would be inevitable. Such allusions could grow over time, as we see in the more overt Matthew.

Open a NT and start reading Mark. You will see that (almost?) every section has textual references to the OT (in case you didn't know, that's what all the footnotes at the bottom of every page of the NT are all about). Is it possible that these textual references developed from oral tradition? Sure, but is that a simple hypothesis? The Jewish tradition is textual, not oral, that's why we have the ancient Jewish texts in the first place.

There's nothing in Mark to indicate an oral tradition, and plenty within it to indicate the derivation from texts instead (as well as external arguments based on what we know about 1st century Judaism). This hypothesis is also consistent with the scholarly assessment of the genre, whereas oral tradition is not.

Why are you proposing oral tradition, when it doesn't fit the evidence, and there is no reason to suspect it in the first place?

Well, I'm no pro historian, but I note many historians do think oral tradition fits the bill. 'Twas not I who first proposed

Textual references in almost every section? I think you must mean Matthew, not Mark.

What appears to have happened is this: 1) oral traditions existed about Jesus' sayings and doings (possibly some written as well). 2) "scholars" began to "search the scriptures" to find OT allusions that could be applied to the oral tradition. After all, the OT is a big book, and if you search long enough you can find most anything you're looking for - especially if you follow no rules, misinterpret and mistranslate "prophecy" as you see fit, as Matthew is especially guilty of. Matthew's allusions are actually quite an embarrassment to Christian scholars. If Jesus were really invented of whole cloth, don't you think they would have come up with a better fit?

As mentioned before, it's quite possible Jesus himself started this ball rolling. Maybe he rode on a donkey on purpose, for example.

This is not to say that some things couldn't have been invented from OT accounts, and inserted into the tradition. I don't doubt some things were. For example, the account of soldiers gambling over Jesus's clothes could easily have been "historicized" from a reading of the Psalm. But to say everything was so developed just doesn't wash.
t

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10-28-2008, 01:00 PM	#227
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	t - spin is not a mythicist. There is nothing improbable about a Jewish cult leader in 1st c. Palestine - I'm sure there were many. But accepting something as historically proven must involve more than mere possibility. You don't have anything more, or anything that links this cult leader to the later Christian religion. Please read the paper by Gerd Lüdemann that I linked to. I think it will answer your questions much more authoritatively than I can. (And Lüdemann is not a mythicist.)

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