No Robots

Somebody notify the Pope, on the ASAP!

Srsly, why don't you start with atheist scholars? William Arnal, for example, writes:

In fact, no one in mainstream New Testament scholarship denies that Jesus was a Jew.--The Symbolic Jesus: Historical Scholarship, Judaism, and the Construction of Contemporary Identity, p. 5

The fact is that the "Jesus-never-lived" meme has been around for a long time and has never garnered any support outside of a small fringe. Voltaire had it right when he said that the notion showed more cleverness than erudition.

bacht

If scholars prove that there was no prophet from Galilee, and that the Christ was an invented spritual being who promised resurrection, I don't think people will stop believing in the supernatural or some kind of afterlife.

I'm not convinced that people in general want to be updated on the truth of anything. Humans are very good at lying to themselves and others.

spin

I'm not a supporter of the mythical Jesus line of thought. I have postulated that he may never have lived, because it is a functional postulate. There are after all no discernable historical source for the subject. But let me deal with the core of No Robots' thought here...

It is very hard to read texts that you've been told how to read any differently from what you've been taught to. Just imagine how many people have never noticed that the two birth stories are just two different stories. It's as though two people were given the starting material and told to go off and write the story. Mt starts off with Joseph taking Mary to his house where Jesus is born and we later find this to be Bethlehem. After a flight to Egypt they return to Judea only to find Archelaus as king so Joseph decides to move to "a town called Nazareth". Later Jesus is shunted off to live in Capernaum. Luke however starts his story off in Nazareth, with a sojourn in Bethlehem, before going back to Nazareth and Capernaum is repudiated. Are we reading the same story? Well, if you don't think about it we are.

In most cases Religious Studies is not an academic field. There are lines that institutions simply will not cross. Can a self-professed catholic scholar, for example, meaningfully ask the question "does Jesus exist"? That is simply not a serious option. The best you can hope for is, "well, I don't like this bit, or that, but the story I accept." The world view doesn't usually permit anything else.

Why don't you bite the bullet and let those who are looking to see if 'the "Jesus-never-lived" meme' is productive? At worst it can be wrong, or at worst it can be right. Don't just voice what is popular, but not tested.


spin

No Robots

Why do you oppose, say, Barbara Thiering? Because she is wrong, perhaps dangerously so? Because you have more than ample means to refute her? Because you might be rendering a public service in exposing her theories to criticism? Because you might be able to help people arrive at a better insight into the questions under discussion? Anything else?

The arguments for Jesus-never-existed seem just as belaboured, just as wrong-headed as those of Thiering, perhaps even more so. If mythicists want to pursue their ideas free from critical scrutiny, I suggest they make use of restricted fora, like the Jesus Mysteries. Posting in public is like the Russians radioing in the clear during the Battle of Tannenberg: it was a turkey-shoot for Hindenberg and Ludendorff. Should political adversaries just roll over because their opponents want a chance to test their ideas and see where they lead?

I have no problem attacking the mythicist meme because I see it as utterly worthless, and indeed as noxious. If by opposing mythicism I can propagate my own memes, then I see no reason why I shouldn't do just that.

My own position—that Christ is but a man, that Judaism is fundamentally atheism and that there is no such thing as the supernatural—can hardly be called popular. And I am in fact testing that position right now.

Toto

What's with the military metaphors? Thiering is not dangerous. Pat Robertson is dangerous in a sense, but he doesn't rely on academic theories. Randall Terry is dangerous, not because he believes in a historical Jesus, but because he is willing to kill for his beliefs.

spin

I have dealt with Thiering's eisegesis for many years.

You've shown no indication of being able to make this sort of statement with any support behind it.

As I've said, I'm not a mythicist, but Jesus-never-existed doesn't necessitate mythicism. As you haven't dealt with either mythicism or the position I've theorized, you don't show any sign of being able to make such suggestions with any meaningfulness.

(You have this great penchant for going off in widening tangents.)

More tangent. You are nevertheless still voicing a popular but undigested view regarding the necessity of Jesus' reality.

You need a healthy dose of skepticism on the subject. Start by trying to posit the notion that the unhistorical figure, Jesus, may never have existed. If you can disprove the notion, then you have strengthened your understanding. As it is, you've shown no ability to deal with the Jesus-never-existed notion other than by means of loud poo-pooing. That elicits this image:




spin

No Robots

'Polemic' comes from the Greek for 'war.' Meme wars, my good man, meme wars. Remember how Michael Turton compared Richard Carrier to Rommel (here). Like that.

In one of your very first posts to me, you wrote that, "In my country, just south of yours, fundamentalist Christianity is a growing menace." There are some very dangerous memes around, and I count mythicism among them, because it creates confusion about Christ, who is at the center of much of the dangerous polemic of our time. We have to get the question of Christ right.

No Robots

Look, you could say the same thing about my rejection of the extraterrestrial hypothesis. The fact is that I have examined the mythicist arguments and found them ridiculous and dangerous.

Clivedurdle

Amazon - Laughing Jesus (or via: amazon.co.uk)

spin

All this seems to me is that you are speaking like a true believer. In no sense are they dangerous as an intellectual pursuit and you haven't done the footwork to show their ridiculousness. Your statement thus seems to be a statement of belief. If you can't take the healthy skeptical test, then where are you? There is no problem in postulating "not B": it's neither dangerous or ridiculous. The inability to be able to do so is.


spin