Amaleq13

There is no "scholarly position" with regard to Doherty. That is Carrier's point in addition to suggesting that there very well should be.

No, it is an entirely logical reliance upon the expertise of Carrier over yours in evaluating the adequacy (inadequacy) of scholarly arguments against Doherty. Where you appear to have an emotional investment in opposing Doherty's theory, Carrier has been compelled by a critical consideration of the evidence to alter his previous assumption that Jesus must have been an historical figure. I can't help but be impressed by that sort of intellectual honesty.

It isn't the sort of thing one obtains from folks who are convinced that their own conclusions are beyond any possibility of change.

Layman

The position is the existence of Jesus. Doherty's is but one more spin on an old and discarded idea.

Considering that Carrier is a founder of Infidels.org I'm skeptical that he has the kind of detachment you seem to be describing.

And, by the way, I'm not asking you to take my word for it on the Jesus Myth.

lpetrich

I will try to make some more sober comments. Bede quotes Christopher Price, who quotes Will Durant; I will do a blow-by-blow analysis:

The Christian evidence for Christ begins with the letters ascribed to Saint Paul. Some of these are of uncertain authorship; several, antedating A.D. 64, are almost universally accounted as substantially genuine. No one has questioned the existence of Paul, or his repeated meetings with Peter, James, and John; and Paul enviously admits that these men had known Christ in his flesh.

I see no reason to consider him a myth, even though entangling fact and fiction about him can be difficult.

The accepted epistles frequently refer to the Last Supper and the Crucifixion....

The "Last Supper" here refers to a sacred meal, a common pagan-mystery-religion practice.

The Crucifixion was pictured as having been performed by 'the demon powers of the world", not by Pontius Pilate.

The contradictions are of minutiae, not substance;

The resurrection-detail contradictions are anything but "minutiae", and there is the whole Synoptics-vs.John problem.

in essentials the synoptic gospels agree remarkably well, and form a consistent portrait of Christ.

Due to all their word-for-word copying. Plagiarism is an easy way to create "agreement".

In the enthusiasm of its discoveries the Higher Criticism has applied to the New Testament tests of authenticity so severe that by them a hundred ancient worthies, for example Hammurabi, David, Socrates would fade into legend.

Details, please?

Actually, by Lord Raglan's Mythic-Hero criteria, Jesus Christ strongly resembles other mythic heroes, like Moses, Romulus, Hercules, Oedipus, Krishna, etc.

Despite the prejudices and theological preconceptions of the evangelists, they record many incidents that mere inventors would have concealed the competition of the apostles for high places in the Kingdom, their flight after Jesus' arrest, Peter's denial,

McDonald had mentioned some of these as evidence for a Mark-Homer connection; in the Odyssey, Odysseus is pictured as a great hero, while his men are pictured as whimpering cowards to give a contrast. But a Mark-Homer skeptic has claimed that this was literary convergence, in which case the apostles' cowardice was a separate literary invention.

Interestingly, the "Myth" series of computer games does much the same thing -- your troops are brave and heroic, while the civilians are whimpering cowards. "Please please please please please don't eat me! I've got a wife and kids! Millions of kids!", said in a very whimpering voice.

the failure of Christ to work miracles in Galilee,

That could also be an invention, a way of showing that he does not work miracles for just everybody.

the references of some auditors to his possible insanity,

A way of answering critics, perhaps.

his early uncertainty as to his mission, his confessions of ignorance as to the future, his moments of bitterness, his despairing cry on the cross; no one reading these scenes can doubt the reality of the figure behind them.

That's to make him seem more human, something like what Nikos Kazantzakis had done in "The Last Temptation of Christ".

That a few simple men should in one generation have invented so powerful and appealing a personality,

Never underestimate human creativity. Consider Mother Teresa seeming like a great humanitarian.

so lofty an ethic

Yawn. Much of it is derived from Cynic teaching.

and so inspiring a vision of human brotherhood,

Like the Stoics? And though Jesus Christ may have been inclusive of tax collectors and prostitutes, but he was not very inclusive of Gentiles in general.

would be a miracle far more incredible than any recorded in the Gospel.

That's a joke. More incredible than walking on water, turning water into wine, zapping a fig tree in a moment of pique, driving demons into pigs, raising people from the dead, curing people with magical spit therapy, rising from the dead, etc.?

lpetrich

Layman
Doherty's is but one more spin on an old and discarded idea.

Discarded by whom?

Considering that Carrier is a founder of Infidels.org I'm skeptical that he has the kind of detachment you seem to be describing.

One can be a complete atheist and believe that there had been a historical Jesus Christ.

sodium

I found one quote as very interesting for what it says about New Testament research. This by atheist Michael Grant,
So this atheist is considering a basis on which we might view the gospels as historical. His conclusion, they differ a little from each other, but then, that's probably to be expected.

But surely, being an atheist, he actually believes that all of the supernatural content of the gospels was made up. The importance of the differences among the gospels is tiny compared to the importance of the difference between the gospels and reality. But somehow Mr. Grant is able to compartmentalize this fact, and not consider its implications for the purposes of his academic research.

This is what I find frustrating about mainstream New Testament scholarship. Unlike science and mainstream history, it attempts to remain neutral between naturalism and supernaturalism. So, those of us who reject the supernatural will tend to find mainstream scholarship (even when practiced by atheists) as unconvincing, and as willing to accept absurd positions.

Not that that means the mythicists are automatically correct. It just seems from what I've read that people like Doherty are more willing to deal with the implications of naturalism.

Dominus Paradoxum

You say that as though you believe that the supernatural is logically impossible. If you really believe that, then I challenge you to show me where the contradiction lies.

sodium

It isn't that I think it's logically impossible. I just think it doesn't exist. If we're talking about God, then they debate that endlessly in EoG. But otherwise, we just never see people really able to do magic. So, most disciplines aren't investigated on the basis that maybe magic is taking place in this phenomenon or ancient writing. That doesn't mean it's impossible, just not usually worth considering as an explanation.

Of course, science has attempted to observe supernatural phenomena, like in the recent prayer study. So, I don't think the supernatural is entirely ruled out by scientific methodology. It's just that science hasn't been able to come up with any evidence for it, so scientists and historians don't tend to offer magical explanations to observed phenomena.

Now, if you could somehow prove through scientific experiment that the magical events of the New Testament are possible, then I'd change my outlook. But the history of the New Testament is too murky for it to be used as an argument against something as well established as naturalism. So I think it still makes sense to view New Testament history under naturalistic assumptions.

What I'd like to see is a debate between two unbelievers, one who thinks there was a historical Jesus and one who doesn't, both willing to provide a naturalistic explanation for Christian origins.

Dominus Paradoxum

Isn't this the fallacy of induction? If it is really possible for supernatural events to occur, then that all observed events have been natural does not make supernatural events any less likely. You're commiting the opposite of the gambler's fallacy.

sodium

Induction is really a philosophical issue discussed in the thread,
http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=69585

I'll just point out that almost all of what we call knowledge, scientific or otherwise, is based on induction. If New Testament scholarship aligns itself in opposition to induction, then I'm going to favour induction.

Toto

Layman - this article is really substandard. You and others have raised most of these arguments on this forum, and all have been countered or rebutted - but there is no indication of that in this article. You may not have accepted these criticisms, but they should be discussed if you want to have any credibility.

Certainly it is poisoning the well by making the first reference to a Soviet Encyclopedia.

Michael Grant may or may not be an atheist or an Atheist, but he does not cite any critical methods applied to the Christ Myth theory, and he is remarkably uncritical about the problems in using the gospels as historical source.

Will Durant is a popularizer, from the "great men" school of history.

is not true: his report of his meetings with the pillars has been challenged as an interpolation, whether or not you accept it.

is not an argument against the mythicist position - Socrates might indeed be a creation of Plato. Confucious is probably legend. Some figures regarded as historical do turn out to be legend - why not Jesus?

This has been amply refuted here. The "personality" of Jesus is contradictory, and the ethic and vision are remarkably similar to contemporaneous ethics. There is, further, no real indication that the early disciples were "simple men" unless you circularly accept the gospels as history, or that the story only took one generation to evolve.

Bultman is known to have declared that anyone who questioned the existence of Jesus to be insane - after he questioned all of the evidence that supported a historical Jesus. Can you find any rationale for this ex cathedra statement? I have never seen it defended. It appears to have been based on academic politics.

Stanton's statement seems strange. Many liberal Christian scholars seem to doubt that there is much historical value in the gospels.

And then this article omits several other indications that the question of mythicism is worth taking seriously. No discussion of R T France, who evaluates most of the evidence for a historical Jesus and rejects it, relying on the gospels.

Any serious discussion of problems in the historical method should include Crossan's statement that, when all the evidence can be dismissed as myth or forgery, it is hard to make a case. It would appear that most scholars today avoid the question because they cannot say very much about it, not because the question is really closed.