Ben C Smith

For mythicists, though historicist contributions in the spirit of the exercise are welcome.

The year is 2050. A fresh wave of bright young scholars has effected a massive paradigm shift, and virtually the entirety of biblical scholarship has embraced some version of Jesus mythicism.

The tight critical methodology that some, mostly amateurs, hinted at a generation or two earlier has now become the state of the scholarly art, and not one aspect of the recorded life of Jesus has passed its rigorous tests. The tables have turned, and now it is anybody with historicist leanings who is regarded as a crank or a hack, and who has to publish in special journals or through peripheral publishers.

On the left are hardcore liberal mythicists who insist that there is positive evidence against the historicity of Jesus; on the right are softcore conservative mythicists who prefer a form of agnosticism on his existence, on philosophical rather than purely historical grounds, since (they argue) it is hard to prove a negative. This is the span and scope of the debate now, and one looks practically in vain for a bonified historicist among the membership of the SBL. The Jesus Seminar has just taken a vote, and every bead for every dominical saying has come out black; a nonexistent person cannot utter sayings, after all.

My question is this: Now that Jesus has been proven a myth, what other figures commonly deemed historical at this moment in time might be next? Fill in my tight critical methodology above with whatever method you think would work best to cast historicity in grave doubt; with that same methodology (whatever it may be), what figures (if any) from the pages of history would be in danger of losing their present historical status?

I present this exercise as a way of figuring out which historical figures are closest to Jesus in terms of evidence (for or against). I doubt the evidence for Jesus measures up to that for, say, Julius Caesar; but then, who in history would make a good comparison?

I do not intend to harshly critique any response, though I reserve the right to ask informational questions so as to better understand the basis for proposing a personage for comparison.

Thanks in advance.

Ben.

Casper

I've always liked Euclid as a comparison figure.

mountainman

Phileas (Bishop) of Thmuis
Peter of Alexandria
Methodius
Arnobius
Victorinus (bishop) of Petau
Anatolius of Laodicea in Syria
Malchion (of Antioch)
Gregory Thaumaturgus
Dionysius of Rome
Hermias
Novatian
Serapion of Antioch
Dionysius (of Alexandria) the Great
Cornelius (of Rome)
Cyprian of Carthage
Caius
Tertullian
Anonymous Anti-Montanist
Pantaenus
Victor I
Origen <<<<======================= (partial)
Maximus of Jerusalem
Clement of Alexandria
Bardesanes
Hippolytus of Rome
Theophilus of Antioch
Rhodon
Theophilus of Caesarea
Irenaeus of Lyons
Athenagoras of Athens
Julius Africanus
Letter of Peter to Philip
Lucian of Samosata
Melito of Sardis
Hegesippus
Dionysius of Corinth
Claudius Apollinaris
Apelles
Julius Cassianus
Octavius of Minucius Felix
Justin Martyr
Polycarp
Alexander (of Cappadocia,Jerusalem)
Theodotus
Heracleon
Isidore
Fronto
Agrippa Castor
Minucius Felix
Saint Apollonius
Tatian
Polycrates of Ephesus
Pinytus of Crete
Mathetes
Marcion
Aristo of Pella
Diognetus
Epiphanes On Righteousness
Basilides
Apollinaris Claudius
Apologist - Aristides
Apologist - Quadratus of Athens
Valentinus
Marcion of Sinope
Polycarp
Papias
Aquila of Sinope (of Pontus)
Aristides the Philosopher
Quadratus
Ignatius of Antioch
Clement of Rome
Barnabas
Jude
Matthew,
Mark,
Luke,
John,
Peter
Judas
Paul

Ben C Smith

Good. What would you say is the basis for the comparison? Is it the amount of literature on Euclid, the comparitively late date of this literature, the absence of contemporary coins or inscriptions, something else?

Thanks.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

Hi, Pete. Glad you could stop by.

Ben.

Toto

This question has come up before (in fact, it keeps resurfacing, but I'm not going to bother searching for the old threads). I don't see that there would be any change in the question about most historical figures. But the bottom line is, nobody cares if historians decide that Socrates never lived. It would just be an academic exercise.

Casper

I believe his Elements is second in publication only to the christian bible. I may be wrong on that though. And in the world of geometry he outlines an entirely self-contained concept referred to as "Euclidian", much like Christ introduces the subset of Judaism called "Christianity". He is revered as a sage by some, his personal meme being immortal like that of Jesus. His contribution to mankind is arguably in the top tier of contributions by one individual, and of course there is the similarity of his work to the Gospels; some concepts were already known, he simply put it all together. There is the second-hand nature of his biography written later, and I think there was another Euclid from an earlier time who gets confused with him.

gstafleu

I have not a person but a type of person, more or less in the way Toto mentioned. The primary suspects would be religious figures like Jesus, Moses, Buddha, Mohamed. The reason for this is that religions have there attendant true believers, who have much more of a stake in the history of their heroes than is the case with non-religious figures. Compare e.g. the uproar that would result if a well respected person would tomorrow publish a very convincing MJ article, with the uproar that would follow a similar article for say King Arthur. For that reason religious figures who are claimed as historical should be treated with more suspicion than others. Which of course doesn't mean that they can't be historical, just that they should get more intense scrutiny.

Non religious cultural icons would run a close second. Here it should be remembered that historicity is not a black and white thing: a person may have been historic, but (some of) his actions and attributes may not have been. Maybe Washington is an example of this?

A final note about those religious candidates for non-historicity. I'm not sure we would find all that many. It seems to me that Christianity and Islam are the only two religions for whom the actual historicity of their idols is a defining matter--going by Robert Price's Of Myth and Men it would seem that Buddhism doesn't really see the Buddha as a historic person. But perhaps I have that wrong?

Gerard Stafleu

The Evil One

Gerard, I would posit that Judaism, or at least the Orthodox variety, has a quite a lot invested in the historicity of Moses too.

Ben C Smith

There are certainly historical figures about whom I would not care one way or another, but Socrates is not one of them.

Ben.