Metacrock

I wasn't saying that "mythers" are stupid. I know there are diverse positions, and it's tiresome to reflect them all in every sentence, so I just call "Jesus-mythers" of the Doherty ilk "mythers" and let it go at that. To me anyone who accepts that Jesus is based upon an histroical person is not a myther.

I'm not saying that those who believe he was made up are stupid. I try not to equate intelligence with positions such that anyone who disagrees with me is somehow less intelligent. I don't think that way.

However, I also don't really cut them any slack in examining their views. I'm a historian, and all the older established historians I know just act like that "Jesus myther" position deserves the consideration that the question Big Foot desreves. I think it is really ignoring the basis assumptions of historiography in this age.

Peter Kirby

What are the assumptions of historiography that are being ignored? Sounds fascinating.

best,
Peter Kirby

Metacrock

[color=blue]I'm not interested in defending Meier, but I think it's a great mistake not to consider genre. Because mythological is almost a genre in its own right. To label anything with supernatural elments as "mythology" merely becasue it has supernatural elments would be like throughing about the term "existentialist" and labaeling anything that reflected a general sense of disaffection as "existentialist."[/font]

How are you are so willing to call Mark, John, Q, Paul, M, L, Miracle List, all the sources underlying material (prayer at Gethsemane, passion narrative, Mark's controversy traditions etc.) as fiction like the LotR trilogy?

I don't think "Paul" is fiction in the sense you mean, Q is a sayings collection and obviously fictional, and the gospels are clearly fictions, and there are no underlying sources.


But Q is clearly hypothetical, and the people who made it up said so. The point of Q was not to fool anyone. To say that the Gospels are based upon all mythical sources just because there is no Q source is absurd.





No, you are wrong. There's tons of data. There is good textual data which proves that some kind of prior sources existed and can be pushed back to AD 50. As for the claim that these sources were invented for some reason, you have no evidence for that. There are doctuments form the period saying so, and nothing more than conjecture.



Reading some E.P. Sanders will do you good. He constantly stresses how the Christian creativity was relatively limited.

He has no credible way to make that determination. In point of fact, we know that Christian creativity was vast, since the Passion story is built up entirely of OT models and apparently contains no residue of history at all. Christians also added miracle stories, edited, moved, and deleted events from each other's works, and redacted, adding and subtracting as necessary. Please examine the Gospel of John and tell me again how Christian creativity was limited, not to mention bogus letters of Paul, James, Jude, etc. Sanders claim is bogus in the extreme.


The limitations on Christian creativity can be documented easily enough through the similarity of texts. The sytax shows us they are copied from prior soruces. you just don't make the very same sentence structure as somone else working independently. the argument about copying OT just shows a lack of understand about the way things were done in the ancient world. They liked the OT a lot, it was their primary text, they loved to make litterary allusions to it.








Josephus mentioned Jesus as if he were historical,

...an interpolation. If it were any other text, the whole thing would be tossed as an interpolation. But because it is a "historical" reference to Jesus, scholars have struggled to save it in the face of their own principles.



That argument has been so defeated by scholars today. Almost no one believes that the passage is 100% interpolation. Almost all scholars accept some core witness to Jesus as a historical figure. Your argument is analogous to an astronmer trying to plug the steady state theory.









[Is The Bible the Word of God?

Metacrock

Assumptions being ignored and others made that historians are not willing to make:

1) If we decided that every figure whose story was reflected in polemical literatrue was not historical we would know almost nothing about the ancient world.

2) If we took out all the historicity reflected in mythologized accounts we would know almost nothing about the ancient world.

3) Historians don't discount the possiblity of historicity based uppon similarites t mytholgoical beings, or upon information being reflected in religious literature.

4) historians do not assume that all religious texts were made up to fool people.

5) history is probablity. None of it can be emirically verified. The demand for eye witness accounts is not important for the historicity of Jesus; it is a problem apologetically, but not just for something like the historicity of Jesus himself as a man.


Is The Bible the Word of God?

Gurdur

I feel you are mything the point.

Vinnie

You have no idea. For some of Sander's arguments on this see his joint work with Margaret Davies, Studying the Synoptic Gospels. Specifically these pages (most of) which deal with Christian creativity in the synoptic tradition: 36-38, 41-44, 132, 138-145, 166, 173, 194, 195-196, 221, 308, 323.

Ironmonkey, if you actually want to see material on the embarrassment criterion see pages 301-315 of Sanders & Davies Studying the Synoptic Gospels

Vinnie

Vorkosigan

However, I also don't really cut them any slack in examining their views. I'm a historian, and all the older established historians I know just act like that "Jesus myther" position deserves the consideration that the question Big Foot desreves.

LOL. I'm sure that assuming such a position saves them lots of actual thought on the topic.

[b] I think it is really ignoring the basis assumptions of historiography in this age.[b]

Like Peter, I'd like a list of these.

Vorkosigan

Peter Kirby

I don't think that people are saying, "everything in a religious and polemical text must be false," as that would mean for example that Herod was also a myth because he happens to be in the story. Rather, I think that people are saying that the stories are unreliable because of their mythological qualities and polemical intent. How do you show that the gospels are reliable?

For many people, taking Jesus as having been a real person is a matter of apologetics; it has become part of their beliefs that he is mythical or plausibly mythical. For them, the matter of the historicity of Jesus has extreme significance. Is it wrong for them to require better evidence than hearsay to assuage their doubts?

best,
Peter Kirby

Vorkosigan

This argument has a twofold flaw. First, nobody has decided that because Jesus is discussed in polemical literature he must be mythical, so this accusation is a straw man. Second, even if an methodology made hash out of known history, that would not invalidate it. Your first statement consists of (1) a strawman and (2) an emotional appeal

2) If we took out all the historicity reflected in mythologized accounts we would know almost nothing about the ancient world.

See (1) above. Nobody is doing this.

3) Historians don't discount the possiblity of historicity based uppon similarites t mytholgoical beings, or upon information being reflected in religious literature.

Nobody is doing this either.

4) historians do not assume that all religious texts were made up to fool people.

Nobody is doing this either. Are planning to open a farm with all these strawmen?

history is probablity. None of it can be emirically verified. The demand for eye witness accounts is not important for the historicity of Jesus; it is a problem apologetically, but not just for something like the historicity of Jesus himself as a man.

Good abstract statement, of no importance here. Since you claim to be an historian, perhaps you could tell us what methodological techniques confirm the historicity of Jesus.

Vorkosigan

Vinnie

Well, if people here would crack open a few books before trying to overthrow the academic consensus I wouldn't have to do this.

Vinine