spin

Given that the aim of this poll was to fulfill the aim of an earlier poll which only gave a yes/no choice to the question, how would you improve on the poll?


spin

Doug Shaver

Nice try, but I'd have to select two choices. I believe Paul's Jesus was a myth. The gospel Jesus was a fiction with some connection to that myth.

spin

That still comes in for me as "No (myth)". What you say seems the position of most mythicists, isn't it? ie it started as myth then jumped ship to tradition od perceived existence.

If you were to add an option that would cover you what would it be?


spin

Doug Shaver

Something like "combined myth and fiction," I suppose.

If the following options had appeared, I would have picked E:

C. Myth
D. Fiction
E. Both C and D

Solo

I would have gone for something like

(x) Yes, tentatively, on balance of internal evidence,

or,

(x) Yes, barely, despite of the mountain of mythical accretions and regalia laid on him, obscuring and/or displacing historical fact.

Jiri

spin

I will happily concede that more intelligent choices could have been provided and I didn't think of them at the time.

The exercise started out as a simple yes/no question: "Did Jesus exist? (yes or no)". This is reflective of the way a number of people approach an issue which bears more complexity than the simple statement of the question can lay open.

The reason why I thought it might be useful to reexamine the question was to look at the possibilities. Doug's choice eventually comes down to a "no" while Solo's choice comes down as a "yes", but in each case the position espoused is considered significant enough for one to opt for more choice.

What is also interesting for me is that, despite all the conflict between the HJ and MJ positions on this forum, each of the positions is a minority so far according to the poll. Eight people opt for Jesus existed and twelve that he didn't, though only seven opted specifically for a mythical position. Fourteen so far say that there is not enough evidence to decide.


spin

Apikorus

Were I to take a crack at writing a poll on this subject, I'd include the following options:

• YES : The sayings, actions, and significance of Jesus are accurately described in the New Testament.
• YES : There was an historical Jesus, but he is more accurately described in certain noncanonical Christian texts.
• YES : There was an historical Jesus, but only modern scholarship has succeeded in properly describing him. The scholar whose reconstruction I find most compelling is _______.
• YES : While the NT is theologically tendentious, and while the NT gospels conflate history with fiction, the weight of evidence from the NT and other sources suggests there was an historical Jesus. The proliferation of scholarly historical Jesus reconstructions betokens the difficulties in assessing the relevant data.
• MAYBE : There is insufficient evidence upon which to base a reasoned conclusion.
• NO : There was no historical Jesus. The NT accounts of Jesus are a combination of myth and legend.
• OTHER : (Please describe.)

I think there are more interesting distinctions to be made on the affirmative side than on the negative side. For instance, given my understanding of myth vs. legend, it seems clear that the NT gospels must contain some of both. Aspects such as the preexistent "Word of God" are mythical, while the detailed historiography of the gospel pericopes is legend (or perhaps real history, or some refracted version thereof). So I don't see a useful separation of myth and legend.

graymouser

I'm encouraged that this board seems to be so strongly inclined toward the "Jesus-agnostic" point of view. While I'm not a biblical scholar, I do have a significant interest in history, particularly ancient Greece and Rome, and I've found that all of the various historical and mythical hypotheses presented are, at the very best, educated guesswork. When you take serious history courses on the ancient world, one of the things you find out is that we've lost far more information than we have remaining, and we need to learn to live with the remnants as best we can. In the case of Jesus, the Gospels are so tendentious and hagiographical that we can't extract anything of historical value from them. The wild speculation that goes on (including orthodox Christianity, which is a much bigger leap than the most off-the-wall mythicist theories) is occasionally interesting, but there's no compelling reason to choose one versus the other.

spin

You may be right about the "Yes" component of the poll, though I wonder how fruitful it would be here at ii. I can't agree though with the reduction of the "No" component here. The major distinction in the "No"s though that I have noted is between myth and fiction. There have been various schemes as to how Jesus could be the fruit of deliberate fictional intent.


spin

RED DAVE

Let me ask a question:

Is there any other figure of antiquity about whom we have about as much information as Jesus who is reliably known to exist or, especially, not to have existed?

RED DAVE