Doug Shaver

Perhaps I misunderstood you. I thought you were trying to make a point that some of us had missed.

You said, "In a way the historical and mythical Jesus are not really in conflict." In what way? What are you trying to say beyond the trivially obvious point that some assertions made by historicists and some assertions made by mythicists could be both truth from a strictly logical standpoint? Of course anyone who says that the gospels could be a mix of fact and fiction are not contradicting themselves. But so what? Almost nobody here is trying to push an argument that the gospels must be either entirely true or entirely false.

Some of us do say they are entirely false, but we offer it only as a contingent fact, not a necessary consequence of the observation that they cannot be entirely true. We don't deny that some of the stories could be true. What we deny is that there is compelling evidence for that position.

I'm having trouble parsing that. My argument is that even if there was an itinerant preacher in that place and at that time, and his name happened to be Jesus, he was not the historical Jesus, even if Pilate crucified him, if people associated with him -- his disciples, followers, proteges, groupies, or whatever you want to call them -- had nothing to do with the founding of some religious cult that evolved into what we call Christianity.

It makes no difference how hard it would be to demonstrate the nonexistence of such a relationship between that Jesus and historical Christianity. It is the historicists who need to demonstrate that the relationship did exist. Otherwise the historicity argument boils down to "could have happened, therefore probably happened."

The only tricky thing is to demonstrate why we need to prove that the historical figure could not have existed. This is just history, not math. All we need is a good case that such a figure was improbable on the extant evidence, and I think that case has been made.

I agree that Paul's silence about Pilate is anomalous on the historicist hypothesis, but otherwise I see no problem for either side. Historicists can easily enough claim that the only true statement in the gospel accounts of the crucifixion was "Pilate did it." Mythicists can and do assert that when the stories were first told, no human being had anything to do with the crucifixion.

andrewcriddle

Hi Doug

You seem to be saying that even if:
a/ there was an itinerant preacher called Jesus who was crucified by Pilate
b/ Early Christians in the reign of Claudius claimed to be following an itinerant preacher called Jesus who was crucified by Pilate.

This would not establish a Historical Jesus without direct evidence of a connection between a/ and b/.

This seems an implausible position but maybe I am misunderstanding you.

Andrew Criddle

fatpie42

I don't think I'm saying anything controversial. I'm only trying to clarify the issue. I'm hoping to make a thread that is accessible to newcomers. (Possibly with the hope of replacing it with an even clearer thread in the future by narrowing down issues with this one.)

It sounds like you know what I meant by that quote. Perhaps now you know my intention was not to be controversial, it'll make a bit more sense.

It seems like the lack of controversy is something I ought to make clearer.

I don't think we are so far apart. My suspicions also lie with the mythical Jesus side of things (as in the full-on "there was no historical figure" argument). However, the OP simply handles the problems with HJ not the arguments for MJ (except so far as one implies the other).

It sounds like you are saying something similar to my point about the "some guy called Jesus" issue. So someone got crucified. So what? His name was Jesus? Well that's a very common name from the time! Pilate ordered the crucifixion? Of course he did, since only the Roman authority figure in charge could order a crucifixion! He had people who spent time with him... Oh he must be the messiah then. Goodness knows there couldn't be some ordinary guy called Jesus who was crucified by order of the Romans and HAD FRIENDS without him being the leader of a minor cult directly connected to Christianity. :P

(I'm sure you'll agree with the sarcasm towards the end there.)

So yeah, that's what I meant by "some guy called Jesus". Unless there is a causal link between the historical figure and Christianity well beyond being "some guy with a common name that died" then there's no HJ.

But what if there was a wise figure (possibly a pharisee himself) who argued with other pharisees in a way that was inspirational, gained a god-complex after a baptism by John the Baptist (whose historicity I'm rather more willing to accept) and led a small yet moderately significant cult movement as one of the many self-proclaimed messiah figures of the era?

The way I see it, it shouldn't cause much fuss to dismiss this rather strong claim, but it has also been pointed out that there are other historical figures who are accepted with rather less fuss. Still, I am interested to know how many of those other figures are connected to such outlandish mythology....

The problem is possibly my lack of background in historical analysis. I am not sure to what extent historical issues such as this are a matter of speculation. It seems to me (and I'm not sure anyone's shown me otherwise) that debate is a matter of speculation. I thought that since there was so little evidence to go on, the debate for or against would inevitably a matter of speculation and that this was the best we could hope for. If that's a significant problem then I agree that the HJ argument is in a very weak position indeed.

I ABSOLUTELY agree on this point. The MJ argument should not be regarded as an extreme position. The figure in the gospels is (uncontroversially) a mythical figure. To suggest, considering the level of evidence we have, that he probably never existed at all seems far from a big deal.

I said this was my biggest issue and I meant it. I'm not sure you've cleared this up for me yet.

If the Christian claim that "Pilate did it" is true, that seems (potentially, at least) to tie a very specific crucifixion victim to the Christian religion. If the followers of Jesus knew of that much and had that kind of direct historical connection, who's to say they did not know more about this crucifixion victim?

If the crucifixion was purely a story then Pilate was not involved. Are you perhaps agreeing with my earlier suggestion that when later followers presumed the stories about Jesus (or "Christus" or whatever) were true, they recognised that the only figure who could have been responsible for that crucifixion was Pilate? Or do you have a different theory to this?

fatpie42

Doug appears to have illustrated my "some guy named Jesus" problem, because (and Doug can feel free to correct me) I think I understand this very well indeed.

"There was a preacher called Jesus." Yes, very probably. Jesus was a very common name.

"Jesus who was crucified by Pilate." All crucifixions were ordered by Pilate. They couldn't go ahead without the permission of the Roman authorities. And yes, one victim of such a punishment may well have been Jesus since... I repeat... Jesus was a very common name.

How does this connect with Christianity?

mountainman

If you are referring to Big J, the historicity of Jesus is contested by the Mythicists.

fatpie42

Look back at the whole sentence.
Look at my views about Jesus' historicity.
Then think about it.

Here's the whole sentence:
"While as far as I know his historicity isn't contested, I can't help but think about the figure of the Buddha."

I have since been informed that many Buddhists actually contest Buddha's historicity. I haven't looked into that issue very much though.

mountainman

Hey fatpie42,

I must have been distracted and misread you - sorry about that. There have been a few threads on the historicity of Buddha. Some points include:

* Ashoka - question of archaeolgical structures and inscriptions 3rd century BCE
* C14 - earliest Buddhist texts are 1st century CE

Also Buddhism is regarded not just as a religion. By some it is regarded as a philosophy and by yet other as a metaphysics. To these other groups the historical existence of Buddha is immaterial. Some say there are many Buddhas, and others say we are all Buddhas.

I think that one of the more significant differences between the Christian canons and the Buddist canons, is that when we examine the Buddhist canons we do not find any evidence of the existence of ant-Buddhists, under the control of Satan or the Devil, who were characterized by the most startling habitual behaviour, in that they would "refuse to confess that Buddha had appeared in the flesh". (See the letters of Dear John the Logos Man).

archibald

Like Andrew, I am not sure if I understand your 'some guy called Jesus' problem very well.

I would think that if there was a preacher in Judea called Jesus who was crucified around that time, the odds of it being an unrelated figure would be quite small?

archibald

This is a fair point. It is indeed an important consideration that Jesus is described with a lot of mythological-sounding aspects attached.

As for the other similar figures floating around at the time (eg Theudas, for example), we certainly don't have anything like the same mythologizing flavour. On the other hand, it's plausible that if Theudas' cult had persisted, similar things may have been gradually attached. There is not, arguably, that much 'mythic' stuff in Mark, for example.

Equally, if Jesus was someone like Sai Baba of Shirdi (who did exist), the stories would be very similar indeed.

And the list of messianic claimants, people thought to have been divine, gurus, end-of-the-world cult leaders and assorted religious miracle-workers is very long. Jesus, if he existed, easily fits into a fairly well-established mould. Even people supposedly returning from the dead was not, apparently, entirely uncommon.

Sometimes I even think HJ's main problem is the later fame of Jesus, which may skew attempts (especially for those of us still living in an historically Christian culture) to be objective about assessing him. Had he been described as just another passing fad, we might be less inclined to quibble, rightly or wrongly.

Btw, I think you mentioned that you might more readily accept that John the Baptist probably existed. Is this mainly because he has no supernatural elements attached?

For minor characters of this sort from such ancient history, it's all pretty much speculation, I think.

If you amend 'probably' to 'possibly', I agree

aa5874

I UTTERLY REJECT your unsubstantiated statement.

I am a Mythicists and do NOT at all accept that when the stories of the crucifixion were first told, no human being had anything to do with the crucifixion of Jesus.

It would be extremely illogical that the Pauline character did preach and teach in Major cities all OVER the Roman Empire that the no human had anything to do with the crucifixion and that the Church would place such heresy in the same Canon which have FOUR stories that Jesus was crucified under Pilate in Jerusalem because of the Jews.

Now, it is claimed by the Church, even today, that Paul wrote ALL the Epistles bearing the name Paul.

Examine 1Timothy 6:13 In the NT Canon, and the earliest gMark Jesus story, the Jesus character was crucified under Pilate because of the Jews, because of human beings.

Examine gMark 15.14-15 As a MJer I do not want to be associated at all with any claim whatsoever that the earliest stories of Jesus do not show that Jesus was crucified under Pilate.

As a MJer, I can say that the earliest Jesus story in the Canon, gMark, show that Jesus was a PHANTOM and that no credible source of antiquity up to this present moment can CONTRADICT gMark.