No Robots

The problem is that mythicism isn't even mentioned. Irenaeus et. al. were very meticulous, not to say fetishistic, about listing every heresy they had heard of. Yet we have not one mention of anyone contending that Jesus was just a myth.

rlogan

Well! An agreement!

I do not expect Paul to come up with the fantastically stupid details of an allegedly historical person within the lifetime of persons who would have never heard of his daring-do. Not at all.

The only thing tenable is to introduce these vague mystical ideas first and then only after lifetimes have passed can you attach alleged historical details because then we have people like you who demand "prove the negative" for a thing that was never asserted in the first place.

You, on the other hand, have produced no reason why we should expect alleged literature on the life of a historical person to actually discuss the history of that person in any way whatsoever.

Haw! I find it amazing that people can even conscience the pretense of talking over "history" like this. Ben Franklin's autobiography is never "wholly within the realm of the flesh"...

The very fact we are discussing religious literature in the first place is so vastly more important than this fixation on stupid statements like the "historicity" of Kata Sarka.

Yes, there must have been golden tablets because Joseph Smith talked so plainly - so unequivocally - about them. well, OK - the "historical tablets" may not have been made of gold and were not morphed into existence.

I am a "hitoricist" on Joseph Smith's tablets. I think there were some kind of tablets. Like maybe clay or something. That someone made. And they didn't say the things Joseph Smith stated.

prove the tablets I propose did not exist. Clay. Someone made them. Didn't say what Joe Smith claimed.

The thing is, Ben is asking for positive evidence, and none has been offered. Only arguments from silence.




I see. So it is coincidence only that the Christians actually prove the veracity of their claims via the demonstration that these HB "prophecies" came true with Jesus?

Probability zero.


*yawn*

Who was he?


the historicists are guilty of the worst kind of deception when pretending to talk about the "historical jesus". It is always some hypothetical person - and it is baffling to me how they recoil at the suggestion this person actually be identified.

Identify a historical person? Are you insane?! What treason to historical inquiry!


My reference to the historical rabbit is the fundamental absurdity in the approach. Why of course bugs bunny is based on a %$*# rabbit. DUH!

Any particular rabbit? No. To even CLAIM you are backing the "historical bugs bunny" with a hypothetical rabbit is ridiculous.

Jesus is based on the FORM of a human. DUH. Now can you direct me to any specific person that he is actually based on?


I am not aware of any literature on the mythology of bugs bunny or daffy or the Hulk.

I am aware of letters referring to the "superstition" of the Christians though. Like Pliny.

jakejonesiv

Hi Ben,

I was wondering what you would make of some of the opponents in 1 John?

1 John
2. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:
3. And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and ...

It seems to me we have evidence of a group of people that denied that Jesus was real, that Jesus Christ was not a real flesh and blood human being. How many historical people do you know that have no flesh?

What do you think?

Jake Jones IV

Ben C Smith

This is what I was after on this thread. Thank you.

(There is a big textual issue in verse 3; but since I am looking for any evidence at all, not just original evidence, it does not really matter to our inquiry.)

That there were people who denied that Jesus Christ was made of flesh and blood is well known. But you have added a layer here with the claim that there were those who claimed he was not real.

Jesus not being made of flesh and blood is compatible with the kind of belief we find in the Acts of John, in which there is certainly a person or being named Jesus going around Galilee performing historical deeds, but what is denied is that this person was really human. That is very different than saying that he is not real, which for me implies that there was no person or being who went around Galilee at all.

So what kind of heresy is 1 John combating? Were its opponents claiming that the Jesus who walked the earth was not made of flesh and blood? We know that there were such people (gnostics, docetics). Or were they saying that there was no Jesus on earth at all?

Do you know any way of finding out which?

This is the wrong kind of question for the inquiry. Caesar Augustus was said to have been born to Atia by the impregnation of a serpent. How many historical people do you know who were fathered by a serpent?

Weird claims about an historical personage do not nullify the historicity of that personage.

It is well worth a look.

But right now it looks to me like the heresy in question was probably some form of gnosticism or docetism, not mythicism.

Ben.

Zeichman

As Ben pointed out, the genre of gospel/pseudo-biography is far different from Epistles and theological treatises.

And I'm not demanding that one produces the negative. I'm only pointing out that the name of the thread has yet to be satisfactorily addressed by mythicists. An issue which you've yet to admit that there is no positive evidence for, or the contrary. At the moment, a historical Jesus seems, to me, to be the best explanation for the rise of Christianity.

What's your point? I'm merely stating that there seems to have been little controversy over the nature of Jesus in the earliest Christianities, whether it be mythical or fleshly. The former is arguing from silence (in fact, few real positive claims are made by Doherty, come to think of it), the latter is making largely positive arguments. Whatever the early CHristians believed, it seemed to be pretty much uncontested until the time of 1 John, whose interpretation lends itself to a historicist position.


Likewise, I'm not claiming the Gospel Jesus is historical, I'm claiming that Christianity has its roots in a single person (more or less).

How much of Turton's exegesis was actually used by early Christians?

The author of Luke was totally convinced that the HB predicted that the Messiah must suffer. Does that mean that the idea of Jesus suffering originated with his reading of the HB?

Probablity Zero.

Back to Vork, if anything is attrributed to Jesus even vaguely resembles something from the HB, it is almost immediately considered secondary by him. COupled with his lack of belief in the ability to identify pre-Marcan sources with any confidence and consequential impossibility of Multiple Attestation seems self-fulfilling. Such a reading of Mark is unconvincing to me. I'll be more than welcome to admit that much which resembles events from the HB is not historical, but his approach seems to be overkill.

Don't care to address my actual points? Fine. At least clue me in to what you believe the earliest Christianity to be represented by (i.e. pre-Marcan sources). But if you want to know the parallels, buy a synopsis or something.

I do not understand your question. Do you want me to write a book on the historical Jesus for you or something?


Neveryoumind context. Or totally different meaning of "superstition" being used in a polemical way versus your misuse of the term "myth." Or the fact that there is no indication that Pliny believes Jesus to be ahistorical. Or that he knows only CHristianity a good 80 years or so after it began, and cannot be said to reflect perceptions of the earliest Christianities.

jakejonesiv

You are welcome.

JJ4 Edit: I want to point out that you have moved past compiling a list, to disputing items on the list. (Of course everthing can be disputed). What you cannot claim now is a null list.


I have said they didn't think Jesus was a human being.
They may or may not have imagined the phantom to have manifested itself in an historical context. I can't tell from 1 John. But even if they did, it was historical fiction. Docetic phantoms have not been be proved to exist, so I would say, from a 21st century persepective, that these opponents in 1 John believed in a mythical construct.

JJ4 edit; Maybe I should mention again the Referential Fallacy. That is the naive assumption that the world presented in a narrative corresponds exactly to the real world.

Quote:

Eco argues that the ‘referential fallacy’ in classical theories of semiotics is the false assumption that the meaning of a sign-vehicle is determined by its referent (i.e. by the object to which the sign-vehicle refers). The ‘extensional fallacy’ in classical theories of semiotics is the false assumption that the meaning of a sign-vehicle is determined by its extension (i.e. by the class of objects to which the sign-vehicle refers). According to Eco, both the ‘referential fallacy’ and the ‘extensional fallacy’ may distort a theory of codes by promoting the false assumption that the object of a sign, or the class of objects to which the sign refers, is a necessary condition for the sign’s meaning or signification.

Ben, there were no docetic beings going around Galilee. Maybe there was a human Jesus and they didn't know it (like Phantom of the Opera). But that wasn't what this group beleved. they believed in a type of being which does not exist in the objective world.

You have argued before that any time we find a docetic belief, you must add another layer behind it when there was belief in a real human being. Do you want to stick with adding that layer?

It doesn't matter. If Jesus wasn't a human being, he was fiction, regardless of what fictitious "historical" context the heretics placed him in.

Jake Jones IV

jakejonesiv

Zeus was imagined to take the form of a bull and visit the earth to impregnate human women. What do you make of that?

Jake Jones IV

Iasion

Greetings,

Pardon?
What about Celsus "On the True Doctrine", who wrote in the very period when the Gospels reached prominence (late 2nd C.)

He criticised the Gospels as "FICTION based on MYTH".

Hoffman's re-construction includes comments like :

"Clearly the christians have used...myths... in fabricating the story of Jesus' birth"
...
"It is clear to me that the writings of the christians are a lie and that your fables are not well-enough constructed to conceal this monstrous fiction"

Celsus' book was so damaging to the Church that it was ordered BURNED - we only have fragments left.



Tatian, in later 2nd century, compared Christianity with pagan mythology and wrote:

“Compare you own stories with our narratives. Take a look at your own records and accept us merely on the grounds that we too tell stories�




What about Porphyry, in 3rd C. :

"... the evangelists were inventors – not historians�



Julian, in the 4th century, claimed Jesus was spurious and counterfeit :

"why do you worship this spurious son...a counterfeit son",
...
"you have invented your new kind of sacrifice "

Julian also explicitly stated the Jesus and the Gospel events could NOT be found in Roman records of the day.



Iasion

No Robots

Iasion: would you be good enough to provide some links?

Amaleq13

I believe my esteemed colleague from the north is trying to point out that claiming "Christianity has its roots in a single person (more or less)" is a meaningless statement from a historical standpoint unless you can identify him.

IOW, (at least this is how I think of it) what is the difference between a mythical Jesus and a historical Jesus you cannot reliably identify beyond the rather circular "the real guy upon whom all the subsequent mythology was built"?