Peter Kirby

I have launched this new site:

http://www.didjesusexist.com/

This web site will accept articles that are in favor of or against the
historicity of Jesus, or that provide background information on related
subjects. Articles are accepted by laymen and laywomen as well as scholars.
The length may vary. Some of the particular topics on which articles are
solicited are mentioned on the web site, but I am willing to hear suggestions
on other articles that may be of interest. I will be writing some articles
myself, but I will be depending mainly on submissions for this web site.

I am interested in comments on the concept of the web site, comments on the
design of the web site, ideas for articles that you may wish to see, and
ideas for articles you may wish to write. With your help this site will be a
valuable resource.

I have already published Sid Green's article
"Qumran and Early Christianity", available here:

http://www.didjesusexist.com/qumran.html

I have made the full text of Maurice Goguel's classic work available on the
"Did Jesus Exist?" web site here:

http://www.didjesusexist.com/goguel/

Enjoy!

Let me know if you have any ideas for an article--either one you might write or one you would want to see someone else write.

best,
Peter Kirby

happyboy

yes, jesus existed. he was mostly just another cult leader, like l ron hubbard or jim jones: charismatic, persuasive, and a master of deception. he started the most successful cult the world has ever seen.

happyboy

MortalWombat

<Clinton voice>It depends on what your definitions of "Jesus" and "exist" are</Clinton voice>

The Jesus as portrayed in the Gospels? Probably not.

Some itinerant teacher named Jesus (Yeshua) who happed to be crucified in the first century, whose story was grafted into a Christ/Logos myth? I dunno. Could be.

I tend to agree with Robert Price when he says
Taken from Christ a Fiction.

Gregg

I dunno, happyboy. I used to hold this view, but now I just think there's too many problems with it:

1) Any "charismatic and persuasive" cult leader who taught the things Jesus does in the Gospels would not have been able to travel about Palestine for one year, much less three, speaking in the precincts of the Temple and before large crowds around the Sea of Galilee. The Romans would have killed him much earlier in his career.

2) If for some reason the Romans HAD left him alone, and he had taught his frankly seditious teachings (the impending overthrow of the existing order) regularly in the Temple and before sizable crowds outdoors, not to mention performed healings (even if they are explained away as psychological healings), and as a final straw had rode into Jerusalem like a king to his coronation and followed up by creating a ruckus in the Temple courtyard, well, Josephus would have almost certainly heard of him, and would have said some things about him, and they wouldn't have been good things, or even neutral things. He would have blasted Jesus as one of the despised rabble-rousers who had brought about Jerusalem's destruction. Instead (if we consider the longer Josephus passage authentic for a moment) Josephus actually speak rather warmly about Jesus.

3) I guess you could argue that Jesus spent his entire career hiding out in the desert preaching only to a select few. But then why would anyone have considered him a threat? Who would have paid any attention when he rode into Jerusalem on a donkey? Who would have cared so much about his overturning a few tables in the vast Temple courtyard (an act which most people there would have barely noticed) that instead of just tossing him out on his ear or killing him out of hand, they would have charged him with blasphemy and sedition and sentenced him to the harshest punishment available under Roman law?

4) Perhaps Jesus spent his career hiding out, but still drew large crowds into the desert to hear him speak (like John the Baptist) and also managed to sneak into more populated areas from time to time to preach and work healings, evading the authorities and escaping back into the wilderness every time. You'd think such a daring, romantic figure would've gotten press even from people who didn't follow him.

5) Getting back to # 3, I suppose you could argue that Jesus was indeed a cult leader hiding in the wilderness (perhaps at Qumran?) with a very small, very fanatical circle of followers who either before or after their leader's death (however he managed to get himself executed, or maybe he faked it somehow--ain't speculation fun!) decided that he was the fulfillment of every scripture prophecy, that he deserved to have every conceivable exalted Jewish name and title accorded to him, and that he was furthermore the human incarnation of the divine Logos (a Greek Platonist concept, not a Jewish one), pre-existent with the father, the Word from which all things were made, the Revealer and Redeemer, and so on, even if he never did anything but live in the desert preaching to his small circle of followers.

Me? I think I'll apply Occam's Razor here. To me, the mythicist theory explains the facts much better.

Gregg

Artemus

Regarding the longer passage of Josephus, following the links on Peter's new page I saw references to the attempts to filter the Testimonium to remove the interpolations and leave the "authentic" Josephus writings behind. This strikes me as intellectually dishonest, to say the least. Is there any justification for doing this other than, well, it makes it less obviously a forgery?

The fact that scholars have been forced to rely on such unscholarly behavior to defend the historical Jesus position would seem to make the point of how little evidence there actually is.

Vinnie

Nice site. Good idea

Peter Kirby

Artemus writes: "This strikes me as intellectually dishonest, to say the least."

As one who once believed in the authenticity of a reconstructed Testimonium, I can say that it is not intellectually dishonest. It may be wrong, and that would have to be shown. But even then, it would not be intellectually dishonest unless you could also show that the researcher knows it is wrong but teaches it anyway.

best,
Peter Kirby

Tercel

Yes, ever since it has been recognised that the standard text of Josephus as we have it cannot be the original, attempts have been made to determine what the real original was... hardly anything unusual - it's the standard practice of scholars to attempt to best determine originals where interpolations are suspected.


How is using your brain to determine the most likely truth "intellectually dishonest"?!?

? If you think everyone's out there trying to prove that Josephus originally said something about Jesus because they're quaking in their boots at the thought of the non-historical Jesus theory, then I think you've got the wrong end of the stick or more probably the wrong stick. In general, regarding scholars, nobody cares about the non-historical Jesus theory. Apologists like me, Vinnie, Layman etc care because people on these boards spout it at us. Scholars don't have to put up with that trash - they don't defend the historical Jesus position because they don't take seriously the non-historical Jesus theory.
Scholars who have never heard of the non-historical Jesus theory, but whos expertise are on the writings of Josephus are interested in what Josephus most likely said for the sake of knowing - not because they wake up each morning worrying that Jesus might not have existed. What even makes you think that all the scholars who have theorised possible reconstructions the original text are Christians...?
And I think your average Christians might just have a right to have a passing interest in what Josephus had to say about Our Lord or whether he had anything to say at all.

You seem to be forgeting that you do exactly what you accuse these scholars of. Only in your reconstruction (which comes purely from what you would like to be true rather than from your examination of the evidence) of the "authentic" Josephus, you don't have him mentioning Jesus at all.

Yeah, of course: How silly of me. That's right: every scholar in the world for the past 100 years, including non-Christian ones, are out to defend the historical Jesus position and there's a massive world wide conspiracy to hide from the public how little evidence there is for a historical Jesus. Yup definitely.

Your accusations of unscholarly behaviour are really pretty funny coming from someone who's prepared to do all sorts of special pleading and claim all sorts of things support a theory whos only actual evidence is the silence of Philo and one short Bible passage (ie Romans 16:25-27).

luvluv

What Tercel said.

Artemus

It is tampering with evidence to make it better fit a desired conclusion (that Josephus wrote about the historical Jesus) in the absence of any other supporing data. In any other area of scholarship that would immediately be dismissed as intellectually dishonest.

This brings to mind an old joke where a mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were told to prove that all odd numbers are prime. On his turn the physicist said "1 is prime, 3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is experimental error, 11 is prime...".


Tercel-

You are attacking a strawman. What exactly is my "reconstruction of the authentic Josephus"? Am I really ready to do all sorts of special pleading? Did I bring up the silence of Philo? Did I bring up Romans 16:25-27? Perhaps you are confusing me with someone else?