Chris Weimer

I'll quote Erhman:

I forgot that this is how we do it around here - if it doesn't support your argument, it must have been an interpolation!

It is simplistic. You don't know the scope of the argument of silence, nor are you able to handle the type of documents for which you claim an argument of silence.

The first two aren't academic articles, and aren't even related to the ancient world. The last one - did you even read it? It doesn't support your theories at all.

What type of logic is it?

There are, as I pointed out.

How is a mythical Jesus easier than an historical Jesus? Evidence? Have you even read Doherty's works? Doherty has to seriously stretch Greek words to make Paul fit his paradigm. And overall, he utterly fails in doing it.

The face value? What do you know of the face value? You've barely done any research at all!

Likewise, you have to explain away all the passages or irrationally dismiss them.

Non sequitur.

The mystical Jesus?

GakuseiDon

Of course he could do it that way. We've been through this before. He doesn't have to unload the full 300 pound gorilla in one go. Some incremental steps:
1. That Minucius Felix's Octavius represents a Christianity that didn't have a historical Jesus at its core
2. That Justin Martyr's student Tatian didn't believe in a historical Jesus at the time he wrote his "Address to the Greeks"
3. That the Romans believed that the myths of their gods were enacted in a "sublunar realm", and not on earth.

As far as I know, no-one else except Doherty is promoting such concepts, so any of those three would arouse a lot of interest in the rest of his theories. Since none of them directly impact Jesus's historicity, there would be less fear of albino monks knocking on his door as well. If he could present a case that any Second Century Christian didn't believe in a historical Jesus who walked the earth, wouldn't that be a fantastic piece of evidence for his overall theory? Doherty has published on the web a lot of material about M. Felix and Tatian -- what would be stopping him from trying to publish that material now, and get people interested in the rest of his work?

lee_merrill

I do agree that an argument from silence may at times be appropriate, and cogent. I also insist that arguing as people do that because we haven't heard of the Luke census of Quirinius, because we haven't heard of Nazareth (oops, we have), that means there were no such events or cities. That is unwise, I would say, especially in evaluating historical claims for which we do have some evidence.

spamandham

Are you suggesting a recent find regarding Nazareth, or are you simply referring to the same 4th century references that are already known?

Amaleq13

Who would argue that when we have Josephus corroborating Luke?

dog-on

So, after multiple pages of this thread, does anyone have any solid evidence to support the HJ position? The longer that this discussion goes on, the more apparent it becomes that the HJ position is built on nothing more than sand.

HJ simply seems to become an appeal to tradition, nothing more.

Regardless of the accuracy, in all details, of any of the specific MJ theories, there seems to be nothing in HJ that can better deal with all the available evidence.

Now, there are those, (some of whose opinions I sincerely respect), who seem to passionately argue the HJ case. What is it that has you so convinced?

GakuseiDon

I've always said that there is little evidence for a historical Jesus. It's just that the accepted evidence seems to point to a HJ. This includes:
1. Letters by Paul, which arguably refer to a person who was born on earth and died in the near past, in Jerusalem, within about 20 years of Christ being crucified.
2. One or possibly two references in Josephus, within about 50 years of Christ being crucified.
3. A reference by Tacitus in the early 2nd C CE.
4. References by Ignatius and other Christians from the early 2nd C CE.
5. The Gospels themselves.

Not a lot of evidence, to be sure, and I'm sure that you would dispute all these points. But IF you accept any one of them, they are powerful evidence for a historical Jesus.

I know that mythicists hate being compared to creationists, but this statement from a creationist on the ridiculous Creationism Museum only needs to be tweaked slightly to make it match statements by some mythicists that I've seen:
http://frontier.cincinnati.com/comme...5&threadid=250

Yes, I think the museum will provoke much-needed discussion on evolution. It is not good for science when a theory is raised to the level of orthodoxy and people fear to question it. I hope that the museum provokes informed discussion and debate about evolution, a theory that has a lot of problems and which is burdened by its status as an "orthodox" belief in much of the scientific community... People's careers should not be threatened because they advance "unorthodox" positions, such as a disbelief in evolution...

Note that I'm not comparing the merits of the cases here, merely the attitudes. Dog-on, wouldn't you urge creationists to combat evolutionists in the academic arena if they claimed to have a strong scientific case? What would you think if they complained that there is no use doing that since the scientific community was biased, and so they would rather keep their arguments in the popular sphere? Wouldn't you see it as a cop-out?

What is stopping mythicists from going in and confirming Doherty's theory? I mean, you want scholars to look into it so that THEY will push it -- why not do that yourself? I don't mean just pointing to Doherty's book and claim that all answers are there. I mean actually seeing whether he is right about his claims. Do YOU believe that the Romans thought that their gods acted in a sublunar realm? Or that Tatian originally didn't believe that there was a historical Jesus at the core of Christianity? Or whether his explanation of "born of woman" is reasonable? Have YOU confirmed these points for yourself? If the mythicists aren't doing this, why should the scholars?

dog-on

I see the analogy you are trying to make, but in reality, we are dealing with an issue that can't be proved in a laboratory, unlike evolution. I would like to see the MJ camp make bolder moves into the "academic arena" with their claims, however. Personally, I think they will find a bit of push-back, not solely because of the scholarship, but more so due to the vested interests that may be less-than-pleased by such a discussion.

There is, to my knowledge, no way to "prove" the case for either HJ or MJ based on our current evidence. One is simply left with trying to interpret the evidence we have at hand. The end result being that, when everything is taken into consideration, it just seems that MJ does do a better job at explaining all of the available evidence than does HJ.

Whether or not all of Mr. Doherty's thesis is valid, one must admit that he has tied together much more of the evidence into a plausible "possibility" then have others in this field. HJ works all seem to take the a priori position of an HJ as fact and then build the case...(does that make sense?).


Maybe I personally assign a high likelihood to the possibility that the early (Roman Catholic) church had both the means and motive to "tweak" the history to further their own agenda.

Chris Weimer

This is either hilariously ignorant, or fallacious in its (re)use of an analogy. I don't care which you choose to be - take your pick.

You see, evolution is a fact - certain things in history are facts - like manuscript A says such and such. No one can dispute those things. However, there's also the Theory of Evolution, which is the scientific theory explaining the evolution of species over time. That's akin to the Historical Jesus theory. Neither can be "proved" in a laboratory, but both are merely interpretations of facts and evidence.

Chris Weimer

You're also confusing two things - HJers don't only focus on finding evidence for an historical Jesus - to many, they already found it. The extant evidence is plenty, and no MJer has yet to successfully overthrow it. All they've been able to do is dismiss and handwave. How do they explain the gospels? Dismissal and handwaving. Nothing else. No critical inquiry. Their biased minds hate Christianity so much that they refuse to engage the primary sources here, instead citing hypocritically that the gospels are biased therefore entirely unreliable.

Every now and then we'll get someone like Earl Doherty who tries to explain it. His torturing of the Greek language and pagan concepts is evidence enough that his theory is bunk.

What's left? Nothing for Jesus mythers.