cajela

Hi folks,
As one uneducated in biblical scholarship, I enjoy lurking here because I learn such a lot. I was quite surprised to find that people here argue very strongly that Jesus is a mythical character. I had always assumed that there was some Jesus chap that the religion was based on, if only very loosely. Monty Python has led me to believe that Palestine was awash with Messiahs at the relevant time. Surely MP would not lie :-)

Now, what I want to know is whether this Mythical Jesus is an academic consensus, mainstream position, roughly 50:50, minority, or fringe position - among serious ancient historians. Leave out all the theologists & apologists if you will, but please be honest with me. Are you mythicists fighting an uphill battle, or are you (like evolutionists) the uncontested winners except for the usual fundie frootloops?

RUmike

Among serious ancient historians? Fringe position. Without a doubt. The scholarly consensus is overwhelmingly (99%+) in favor of a historical man named Jesus who lived in 1st century Palestine that is ultimately at the heart of the gospel stories.

Thomas II

Understand one thing: there are several layers to the figure of Jesus,just like there are several layers to a map and the territory. No matter how much the map accurately describes a territory, it is NOT the territory...

openlyatheist

cajela,

I asked very much the same question here a while back. Allow me to share my answers with you:

Jesus Myth: does it take an historian?

Earl Doherty himself sent a reply via a moderator. Here's a quote:

Someone mentioned that the qualification for competency ought to be further restricted to the "biblical historian". The problem is that such 'historians' invariably come out of a religious-confessional background. (I'd challenge anyone to give me much of a list of "biblical historians" who do not.) Are they going to approach the question in an unbiased manner, using the methodology of the historian's craft in a neutral manner? Again, a rhetorical question. Can anyone show us how a "proper" historical methodology has arrived at a demonstration of Jesus' existence--beyond the type of argument I've mentioned above?

It seems to me that the majority of historians fail to question the existence of Jesus for the same reason everyone else does; it is generally taken for granted.

Here's a link on alternative Messiahs in history that I found too. Enjoy.
http://www.livius.org/men-mh/messiah....html#overview

GakuseiDon

Lowder has an interesting article that perhaps implies why that is so (my emphasis):
http://www.infidels.org/library/mode...r/indconf.html
That's not to say that the NT is historically accurate -- I'm sure that Lowder would be the first to agree that it isn't -- but whether or not it is reasonabe to assume that the NT was the response to the actions of some historical person. Against this, the Jesus Myth must be measured. It's just that it hasn't been measured in an academic forum to date.

Killer Mike

If you stay within mainstream scholarship, there is a 99.99% acceptance among scholars that Jesus did exist. Go to Harvard, Yale, Oxford, etc.., and they all teach that Jesus did exist. The basic summary is that Jesus was just one of the dozens of people claiming to be messiahas and miracle workers at that time (see Life of Brian by Monty Python ). He preached for 1-3 years, and had managed to gain a small following of believers. Eventually he was executed over Passover by Roman authorities as a criminal. Early in his ministry, there was wide diversity of belief in interpretation of his teachings, but some of his followers, believed that shortly after his death god would come with all his glory and that the end of the world was near. Stories about Jesus circulated around mainly thru oral tradition at first, and eventually some of them came to be written down. About 40 years later, the Jews revolted against the Romans, and this war was lost. After the failure of this war against the Romans, it is when we start to see the Gospels being written (with Mark being the first). So the Gospels are a reflection of how the early Christians were dealing with losing the war, and the fact that the second coming had not come. For over 40 years they were waiting for God to come in all his glory, and this they thought would happen shortly after his death! They dealt with these very depressing and hard times by telling stories about Jesus. This is a very brief summary, but for anyone interested Id recommend books written by Helmut Koester from Harvard, Paula Friedrickson from Boston University, or Bart Erhman from the University of North Carolina.

premjan

Interesting, so the resurrection was more of a hallucination, myth or wishful thinking (when God didn't come).

Killer Mike

The resurrection is part of Christian Mythology. Death and resurrection was a common theme in Pagan religions. Its origins comes from worship of the Sun God. As the Sun sets (dies) it later rises from the dead the next morning (at sunrise). Over time death and resurrection themes evolved. Its generally accepted among mainstream scholarship that Christian stories were largely influenced by these Pagan themes. Other stories of miraculous births were common, and the Pagan god Mithras was said to have been born on December 25th as well. Written on Urgatic texts dated to about 5000BC are stories of a Virgin Mary, of a Jesus, of a death and resurrection, belief in heaven and hell, etc.. While the names and details are different then in the Gospels, the basic themes are all the same.

darstec

Yes, just like it is reasonable to assume there is a real ox behind the story of Paul Bunyon and Babe the Giant Blue Ox, after all we know oxen existed way back when the fable was created. The problem is that oxen are not blue and neither do they obtain the height and breadth of Babe. Furthermore, could you point to which particular ox the story of Babe was based upon?

The same goes for Jesus or rather Joshua, i.e. Yahweh is salvation, particularly since is was one of the most common male names. Joseph and Mary were also common and most likely used like Jane Doe today. Sure there might be a Jane Doe but unlikely that the court case is dealing with anyone with that birth name.

rlogan

Data please.