maryhelena

Stephan, you and I may have our differences - but it looks like that here we are in some sort of agreement.....

I don't think that the ahistoricists case will be going places while it's mostly based upon interpreting Paul. The ahistoricists case needs to be grounded - and that means it has to have a foot in historical realities. Just because there was no historical JC does not mean that there was no interest in historical figures. The alternative to a non historical JC is not Paul's cosmic christ figure. The gospel JC can be viewed as being created from a mix of OT figures or ideas. Likewise, the real history of early christianity is a mix of the historical figures that were deemed to be relevant in some way, inspirational or being in the right place at the right time. The ahistoricist position has to put a face on things - it has to have a historical basis. Paul's imagination will not carry the day for an investigation into early christian origins.

aa5874

MJers do not have to put a face on Myth Jesus since we KNOW CHRISTIANS believed in FACELESS entities like the PHANTOM that came down from heaven WITHOUT birth and WITHOUT flesh.

You must remember that Marcion and the Marcionites were considered CHRISTIANS in antiquity.

Jesus Christ was NOT the ONLY MYTH character that was BELIEVED by Christians of antiquity. Please read "Against Heresies" by Irenaues, "Prescription against Heretics" by Tertullian and "Refutation of ALL Heresies" by Hippolytus.

You seem to forget that it was CHRISTIANS who were called HERETICS and that Christians BELIEVED in many different Gods of antiquity.

jgoodguy

Peter Kirby has pointed out that the investigation into JM and HJ is not science and thus neither position gets evolution as their default. The problem with continuing to complain about the comparison, is that it becomes apparent that neither side has any tangible evidence and the casual or cynical bystander gets the idea it is 2 competing flavors of creationism arguing.

jgoodguy

I'd suggest working backwards in time. Take the need for a Jesus in a particular place and time for the orthodox winners of the Christian conflicts and show its development. Show the cultural/historical/political reasons for a Jesus in a particular place and time. Show the development of the concept backwards in the time of development revealing a less and less complex version of Christ/Jesus until it disappears. Show the competitors to the orthodox and their views of Christ/Jesus that were discarded. Ehrman has done this to some extent.

jgoodguy

Vridar has response to McGrath.

Doherty’s argument in chapter 5, and correcting falsehoods in a certain “review”

McGrath has a new post up:

Overview of Part One of Earl Doherty's Jesus: Neither God Nor Man (with Baloney Detection)

avi

a. What does anyone mean, by writing: "not science"? Science is not some sort of priestly activity. Scientific inquiry is nothing more than systematic, thorough, honest investigation. A "scientific" mentality, in terms of the HJ/MJ debate, simply implies an effort to examine, critically, accurately, and fully, the available evidence, with a conclusion based upon analysis of that evidence.

In the case of HJ hypothesis, there is no evidence, apart from the clearly fictional gospels, and the probably interpolated letters of Paul. Those who argue for Tacitus or other Roman authors, or Josephus, are simply engaged in wishful thinking, from the point of view of having non-interpolated manuscript evidence to support such wishful thinking....

b Contrarily, the MJ hypothesis requires neither evidence, nor testimony from ancient authors. Do we dismiss claims that Islam is nonsense, because no one has been able to prove that Mohammed did not fly to heaven to meet with God?

As scientists, we examine the evidence. We sift it. Like gold miners, panning for gold nuggets, we look into the sieve, and hope to find something shiny.

Thus far, we have found nothing of value. Upon discarding the "fool's gold", i.e. ordinary pebbles, we find only emptiness in our sieves. Everything else has passed through the tiny holes, back into the stream. There are no gold nuggets. Mythicism requires no evidence. Do I need evidence to prove the absence of a tooth fairy?

The scientific approach is to critically scrutinize the data, and repudiate the notion that one can convert the base metal Lead, into Gold, based upon the result of that inquiry. There is no credible evidence to support an HJ, therefore, MJ is all that remains at the bottom of the sluice gate. It is not necessary to prove that Lead cannot be converted to Gold. MJ is what remains after HJ has been clearly shown to represent Lead into Gold.

avi

jgoodguy

"The thing about NT studies is that there is no pseudoscience, as there is no scientific method involved. There is perhaps pseudoscholarship, but that is not do to the existence of a unified scholarly method, as the guild uses the Ph.D. writing for peer review as the standard for writing scholarship, short of having any real set of rules." link

"Scientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge.[1] To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific principles of reasoning.[2] The Oxford English Dictionary says that scientific method is: "a method of procedure that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses."[3]" link

I'll go out on a limb here and say that neither the HJ nor JM can be investigated by the scientific method.

There are 3 main possibilities of an investigation, not 2. HJ, JM or insufficient evidence. A JM affirmation can be as simple as it was a myth and end there to a detailed analysis of how the myth developed. Just like the HJers got a bunch of Historical Jesus Theories. A JM affirmation could result in an embarrassing number of Mythical Jesus Theories.

ApostateAbe

I don't think the idea predominates through being a meme. It kinda springs up many times independently, I figure, much the same way the light-focusing organ, the eye, has evolved many times independently in the tree of life. The comparison between mythicists and creationists first came to my mind, not because I heard anyone else make the comparison, but because of the striking seeming similarities. Much of my initial debating background really was with the creationists. When I got into the Jesus debates, I saw the same sort of patterns. I will list some of them. You may disagree with these things--I am not claiming they are correct, and I am not going to defend them--only that it is the general perspective of someone who argues in favor of a historical Jesus, and it may pay to understand such a perspective. The positions of creationism and Jesus-mythicism (or Jesus-skepticism) and their respective adherents:

• strongly fit an ideological bent
• are a very slim minority of the mainstream secular intellectuals
• believe that the mainstream secular intellectuals have it wrong because of an ideological bias
• believe that the methodologies of the mainstream secular intellectuals are merely self-serving
• believe that the whole academic system of the mainstream secular intellectuals is fundamentally corrupt and in need of a revolution
• find their funding and their greatest base of support in the ideological laity
• target most of their literature at the ideological laity, not the intellectual publications
• have founded their own exclusive scholarly journal of self-reviewed (not peer-reviewed) articles
• employ primarily deconstructionist argumentative style, or a focus on promoting uncertainty rather than probable conclusions
• treat uncertainty and ambiguity as a winning counterargument
• focus on tearing down their opposition, not on building up their own theories
• are wildly diverse and widely divided in their own set of competing theories (each specific theory has adherents that are a minority of the total)
• are most damningly unreasonable with respect to the most popular theory among the laity
• promote their criticisms through focused docuganda films

One counterpoint to such a comparison tends to be, "Almost all creationists believe in a historical Jesus." And that's right. Likewise, creationists are more likely than proponents of the theory of evolution to be skeptical of 9/11 conspiracism. I don't see it so much as a matter of unreasonable conclusions as much as the underlying psychological/sociological dynamics of belief. It is all closely related to one principle--justifying a conclusion motivated by ideological prejudice when fair judgments of the probabilities may otherwise seem to stand against it.

aa5874

Well, you are so wrong. Scientific methods are used to RECONSTRUCT the Past.

Science is a FUNDAMENTAL tool to help understand the Past (History).

It is a complete mis-conception that the inquiry of the historical veracity of the Jesus story cannot be resolved by scientific methods.

It is actually through Science that we NOW know that God of the Jews was not or is the least likely to have created the world as described in Genesis.

But the Scientific method can do more. It can also show that Jesus could have only been a myth fable once the available evidence from antiquity are PROMPTLY placed under the rigorous and controlled application of the scientific methodology.

First of all muliple theories are NOT embarrassments provided that there is DATA to support each theory.

What is embarrassing is when some do NOT understand the difference between a "theory" and mere "speculation".

Once some claims there was an HJ and is willing to argue for such a claim then it must be EXPECTED that they ALREADY have the RELEVANT DATA to support their claim. This claim is in effect a proper theory

But when one PRESUMES there is an HJ without any known credible evidence
then such a claim is just an unsubstantiated speculation and that is the present situation with HJ.

MJers have a proper theory. The NT and Church writings do describe Jesus as a myth, and in those very writings Jesus ACTED as a MYTH.

Now, as soon as all the extant evidence is subjected to the scientific methodology then HJ will OFFICIALLY COLLAPSE and BE REJECTED.

jgoodguy

The Historical Method not the Scientific method is used to analyze history.