Clivedurdle

Is part of the problem about jesus myth being accepted by the mainstream because there are in fact a series of myth theories, some of which overlap, but because they are in opposition to a "catholic version of history" they have not yet broken down the equivalent of the walls of constantinople and led to the fall of the Roman Empire?

A top of my head list - anyone want to add to these? How might they be grouped?

F&G - gnostic Christ - is Doherty similar?

Conspiracy - Caesar or Titus or someone

Ellegard

Nazarenus - Seneca did it.

Mountainman

Evolutions of Christs

I'm not sure if I have put one forward - Jewish Hercules plus alchemic philosophers stone plus passion play brought together by Marcion.


Because these do look speculative, do they get ignored, forgetting the hj (tm) is equally speculative and all the above are probably better attempts because they do build on various historical factors.

gstafleu

I suppose that could be an excuse. But I think "modern MJ theory" is more or less what I sketched in my Two Threads thread, and that is a fairly coherent whole.

F&G doesn't contradict that. I think it was pointed out in another thread that, although not invalid, just the similarity with the mysteries is to narrow a foundation for a complete MJ theory. But I'd think it can serve as part of a modern MJ theory. Basically another fiber in the P-thread (which shows how everything J did or said is derived from somewhere else).

I can't quite place all of the others. Although, with all respect to Jay and Pete, I suspect that MM theory and Jay's book are currently, let us say, to far removed from most things to have really registered on any but the most dedicated radar.

Gerard

Bodhi

The Jesus myth theories aren't accepted because they're never based on honest scholarship. F&G's theory relies on taking a lot of things out of context, and stretching the truth quite a bit; if you take the time to check all of their references you'll see that.

Clivedurdle

As I have just posted, I think it is more that one's position on mj is related to one's cultural religious background. For me as an (ex?) pentecostal my religious culture was obviously spiritual, heavenly, mythical, centred on Hebrews and Revelation and for me Doherty has got it just about right!

There was a doh! reaction, but interestingly it was reinforced by reviewing my religious background.

I am very interested in what Solo has been writing about this, and cannot see myself as a believer here. I see MJ as the logical position.

One thing that needs explaining is the power of the idea, and why it took off. This does not require a human directly. I do see very important psychological matters at play, including the concept of sacrifice and atonement and resurrection. And actually, if a Jesus did set all this off he is showing levels of psychological sophistication that would definitely have been noted by outsiders. But Jesus makes sense as the character on which to hang the ideas, a classic godman!

So, do we have anyone who is presenting the required levels of sophisticated thinking as a possible founder? Marcion, an Emperor or one of his bureaucrats, a team of people?

mountainman

In order to present an accurate account of the classifications
of theories related to the history of christianity, you have to
move beyond this false dichotomy of history and myth.

The classification of FICTION needs to be added.
Fiction and myth are totally different animals.

Julian uses both the words "myth" and "fiction" in his 4th century
assessment of christianity, but he is convinced that the fabrication
of the Galilaeans is not a myth, but a fiction.

There is a valid distinction between people who believe that Christianity
* started with an historical savior in the 1st century (mainstream HJ)
* started with a mythical saviour in the 1st century (mainstream MJ)
* started with a fictional construction by a political schemer in the 4th century. (FJ)

The resource is focussed on the final category, involving fiction and fraud.
This index is by no means compehensive.

Emperor Julian's Invectives Against the Galilaeans" (c.362 CE)

Within forty years of the Council of Nicaea, we have the emperor Julian writing the following:

""It is, I think, expedient to set forth to all mankind
the reasons by which I was convinced
that the fabrication of the Galilaeans
is a fiction of men composed by wickedness.

Jean Hardouin (1646-1729)

From Bossuet to Newman, Owen Chadwick, Second Edition, Cambridge, 1987 (1957):

In a work of 1693 he hinted; in a work of 1709 he affirmed; in posthumous works of 1729 and 1733 he shouted—a bewildering but simple thesis. Apart from the scriptures—that is the Latin scriptures—and six classical authors, all the writers of antiquity, profane or ecclesiastical, were forged by a group of writers in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries. This group of forgers he never defined or discussed, but always referred to them generically as 'the impious crew', 'maudite cabale'.

Edwin Johnson's "Antiqua Mater: A Study of Christian Origins" (1890)

Edwin Johnson (1842-1901) was a recognised English historian, who is best known for his radical criticisms of Christian historiography. His above work was published anonymously in 1887, and a second work “The Pauline Epistles: Re-studied and Explained" was published in 1894. Both are available in full on the net. The following quote is from Antiqua Mater, where Johnson is referring to the author of the original "Ecclesiastical History" (period to 325 CE), Eusebius Pamphilus of Caesarea:

"This unknown monk pretends to be a man of research
into very scanty records of the past
... [...] ...
He is not a man of research at all,
except in the sense in which many novelists and romancers
are men of research for the purposes of their construction.
This writer is, in fact, simply a theological romancer,
and only in that sense can he be called an historian at all".

Joseph Whelas's "Forgery in Christianity (1930)
This book is available on the net in full. Whelas writes:


The compelling proofs of duplicitous fraud of priestcraft and Church exposed in this book must convince even the most credulous and devout Believer, that the system of "revealed religion" which he "drew in with his mother's milk" and has in innocent ignorance suffered in his system ever since, is simply a veneered Paganism, unrevealed and untrue; is a huge scheme of priestly imposture to exploit the credulous and to live in power and wealth at his expense.

Dr. R. W. Bernard's Apollonius of Tyana the Nazarene (1964)

This publication is online in full at this site. The author outlines the:
"fraudulent replacement of the original religion of Apollonius
by the "new" religion of the Church of Rome which took place
at the Council of Nicea in the year 325 CE.
The author then goes on to explain ...

The word "new" here is significant. It clearly indicates that at the beginning of the fourth century, Christianity, as created by the Council of Nicea, was indeed a new religion, and was preceded by the religion established by Apollonius three centuries previously, which may be more properly called Essenism, a form of Neo-Pythagoreanism in character, the new doctrines which Apollonius brought from India and introduced among the Essenes, which gave rise to the new sect known as the NAZARENES or THERAPEUTS, whose doctrines were essentially Buddhist in nature.) Since this date humanity has been led astray. It is the purpose of this book to correct this historic error and to bring humanity back to the truth, so that, purged by the recent suffering, mankind once more will return to the true scientific path of natural, healthful and humane living taught by the great Pythagorean philosopher, Apollonius of Tyana, nearly two thousand years ago.


Hermann Detering's "THE FALSIFIED PAUL - Early Christianity in the Twilight" (1995)

This book shows that all the Pauline letters are all 2nd-Century fabrications, Catholically redacted from Marcionite gnostic dualist-god original versions.

PRF. Fernando Conde Torrens' "Simon Opera Magna" (2005) [nb: SPANISH]

Catalan professor of the University of La Rioja claims that the entire four books of the NT are late fabrications of Eusebius of Cesarea in the IV century. He found proof not outside the texts themselves but inside, where he found hidden signatures and acrostics that supposedly prove his assertion.
PRF Torrens claims that the emperor Constantine "ordered" the gospels. They were allegedly written by one person, a man called Eusebius of Caesarea, Constantine's loyal servant, who actually signed thousands of manuscrits with the name SIMON ...for a total of 4500 to 5200 signatures...

Note that the publications appear in Spanish, and no English translations of the work appear to be avalable as at August 2006.


Joseph Atwill's Caesar's Messiah - The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus (2005)

According to Atwill, the Gospels are not accounts of the ministry of a historical Jewish Jesus compiled by his followers sixty years after his death. They are texts deliberately created to trick Messianic Jews into worshipping the Roman Emperor 'in disguise'. The essence of Atwill's discovery is that the majority of the key events in the life of Jesus are in fact satirical: each is an elegant literary play on a military battle in which the Jewish armies had been defeated by the Romans. This is an extraordinary claim-but supported by all the necessary evidence.

Francesco Carotta's Jesus was Caesar - On the Julian Origin of Christianity – an investigative report (2005)

Julius Caesar, son of Venus and founder of the Roman Empire, was elevated to the status of Imperial God, Divus Julius, after his violent death. The cult that surrounded him dissolved as Christianity surfaced.
A cult surrounding Jesus Christ, son of God and originator of Christianity, appeared during the second century. Early historians, however, never mentioned Jesus and even now there is no actual proof of his existence.

On the one hand, an actual historical figure missing his cult, on the other, a cult missing its actual historical figure: intriguing mirror images.


Jay Raskin's "The Evolution of Christs and Christianities" (2006)

Jay Raskin presents a number of interesting themes, observation and hypotheses, commencing with his first chapter, entitled "Eusebius the Master Forger. He introduces what he terms, the "Eusebius' Tell, by which the author identifies a writer's quirk, or nuance, in the literature of Eusebius. Raskin analyses the use of this Eusebius' Tell, in the writings of Eusebius, and in the writings of other authors of antiquity, who are - in theory - being quoted by Eusebius.


Mountain Man's "Alternative Theory of the History of Christianity" (2005)

The new and strange ROMAN religion is created out of the whole cloth by Constantine in the fourth century, as a means to control, regulate and administer his newly acquired Eastern empire with effect from the Council of Nicaea. It's implementation was planned for at least 10 years, for the time Constantine became supreme, and could deal personally with any form of controversy which might arise as a result.

I have noted in my time in this forum that there are some contributors
who are unable to countenance this very word "fiction", and will always
stay inside the nice historical dichotomy of history, or myth. Why?



Pete

Clivedurdle

I am attempting to summarise all the non "xian" non historicist views! I forgot that I posted a while back that the classic orthodox trinitarian view is not actually an historic jesus theory, because it explicitly states Jesus father is God!