David Bowden

The debate between "Jesus was only just a myth" vs. "Jesus was a real man, but was deified by his followers" interests me. I've recently read Freke and Gandy's Jesus Mysteries, and while I was turned off by their sensationalism, I thought their overall case for Jesus as something of a "historicized" mystery cult god-man was pretty comprehensive. I won't say I'm totally convinced because I've yet to hear the other side of the argument and consolidate things. But it would seem that they dispense with pretty much every argument put forward for the historical existence of Jesus.

My question is: what's the strongest case put forward by an unbeliever for the real, historical existence of a Jesus who was later mythicized into the Messiah Christians worship? I'd love to get my hands on any print or online resource, but I'd also be happy to see anyone weigh in on the subject with whatever it is that convinces them that there was in fact a real, live man behind the Jesus we know from the Christian tradition.

Thanks in advance!
-Wanderer

lpetrich

Here's someone else who argues that Jesus Christ had been entirely mythical: Earl Doherty, author of <a href="http://www.jesuspuzzle.com" target="_blank">The Jesus Puzzle</a>.

But as to a convinced freethinker rebutting mythicist arguments and arguing that Jesus Christ had really existed, even if he was later exaggerated, I wouldn't know where to look.

Vorkosigan

Nor would anyone know how. Nobody has ever invented a methodology for wringing history out of myth.

Michael

Toto

Jeffrey Jay Lowder in <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jeff_lowder/indconf.html" target="_blank">Independent Confirmation and the Historicity of Jesus (1997)</a> argues that the mere existence of Jesus is not an extraordinary event, so the references to Jesus in the New Testament should be sufficient evidence to decide that Jesus probably existed, however encrusted with myth he later became.

Somehow this is not very unsatisfactory, and I suspect it is not what you are looking for.

Toto

Doherty has not been able to get anyone except J.P Holding (or Nomad) to debate him on the question. Secular historians and liberal Christians would rather just assume that there was a person behind the Gospels.

Someone7

As I see it, there are two types of Jesus mythicism. One being Jesus as some type of composite of older myths and the mystery religions, the other being Jesus as a largely Jewish Messianic myth. I personally think the latter has a lot more going for it in terms of evidence, though they could potentially be combined.

[ April 15, 2002: Message edited by: Someone7 ]</p>

sidewinder

I think if you read some balanced studies on the historical Jesus, it would probably convince you that Jesus existed as real human being. There are a variety of reasons for this. Having said that, even if he did exist as real person, it doesn't prove the claims of Christianity. I think the canonical gospel writers shaped their stories of Jesus to fit their own religious agenda. At the same time, if you wanted to be very strict with your standards, you could probably easily convince me that Jesus didn't exist too.

spin

sidewinder:
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I think if you read some balanced studies on the historical Jesus, it would probably convince you that Jesus existed as real human being. There are a variety of reasons for this.

sidewinder, I don't think that there are the historical documents available to support your claim. We have undatable documents in the new testament and no outside testimony until the time of Justin for any substantive knowledge about Jesus, unless we want to accept that Tacitus's well-articulated description is not a late addition that not one person in the Christian tradition could cite until the last few hundred years, and then Tacitus was not a contemporary either but writing nearly 100 years after the supposed time of Jesus.

So, there are no documented contemporary reports. This makes no history.

sidewinder:
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Having said that, even if he did exist as real person, it doesn't prove the claims of Christianity. I think the canonical gospel writers shaped their stories of Jesus to fit their own religious agenda. At the same time, if you wanted to be very strict with your standards, you could probably easily convince me that Jesus didn't exist too.

What one needs is some hard evidence. Have you seen anything other than the usual resifting of the same information, using slightly different criteria? Things like, "No writer would write such a thing if it weren't real, as it puts a bad light on the matter." This is projecting one's modern understanding into the ancient world without knowing much about that world, but what we have in the writings and any archaeological evidence that comes along -- none has come along to support Jesus's existence.

I would argue that there is not enough evidence to show that Jesus existed, but then there's nothing to indicate that he didn't. However, it's not the possibilities that interest us, but what we can say. We cannot say Jesus existed.

Wyrdsmyth

I look at this way. There probably was a real, living human being around which the myth evolved. He may even have been something of a 'miracle worker,' but obviously I'm highly skeptical of just what the nature of those miracles were -- I keep imagining someone along the lines of a 1st century David Copperfield, faith healer evangelist and/or John Edward. And just look at all the cult leaders, like that guy who got everyone in the "Heaven's gate" cult to kill themselves so their souls could join that comet. Even in our modern era, people often seem to be willing to believe that people among us have supernatural powers. Just imagine if David Copperfield, Penn and Teller, etc. claimed they really had supernatural powers given to them by some deity and they weren't just professional tricksters? Do you think anyone would believe them? Of course there are people who would believe them.

None of this rules out that Jesus really did have supernatual powers, or that he was the son of god, etc. But when you look at charlatans, and see the willingness of people to believe, it just has to make you wonder. People who are otherwise rational and intelligent sometimes get caught up in these cults. So, it's not just a matter of pointing out that believers are all a bunch of idiots.

To believers, of course they're going to want to say the Gospels and Paul's letters are all high-quality historical documents, and they authentically establish Jesus as a historical person. But there are a lot of questions. For example, there seems to be an editing process done by the early church, in which certain documents were left out, while others were included. And there are questions about who the authors of the Gospels were, and to what extent they all were writing first-hand accounts. Apologist historians sometimes like to point out that Jesus' life was better documented than the lives of certain historical figures, like Julius Caesar or Socrates. But the thing about those other figures is, also, no one is claiming they had magical powers. Caesar claimed to be of divine blood, and he was deified after his death. But no biographer of his that I know of claimed he had any supernatural powers. Some of the accounts of Caesar's life were written much after his death, that is true, but although Caesar's accomplishments were many and great, they don't have any supernatural aspect to them. Suetonius and Plutarch, just to name two, saw Caesar as a great man, but a man. And Plato, who knew Socrates, attributed many wise sayings and accomplishments to his mentor, but didn't attribute to him any magical powers. We do take it somewhat on faith, that these biographers were being honest about the men they wrote about, but if they were attributing supernatural powers to them, I think certainly, that would make the writings much more extraordinary, and hence, less credulous. It just doesn't strike me as any great leap of faith to believe Caesar won the battle of Alesia, in which he defeated Gauls at 6 to 1 odds, or that Socrates drank hemlock when he was sentenced to do so, when he had friends willing to help him escape. To be sure, those are surprising events, but I do find them credible.

A crucial point in discussing the ancient sources, is that no modern historian worth his salt takes any of the ancient writers as absolute. All are doubted to some extent, even if it is only in a tendency to exaggerate or focus on a certain slanted view, and not to outright lie. But when ancient writers talk about miracles and the supernatural, obviously, that right there diminishes their credibility.

To sum up my position...

I think there really was a Trojan War, but I don't think the ILIAD is an accurate telling of it. There really may have been an Achaian league of kings, led by someone named Agamemnon, who besieged a city ruled by someone named Priam. But I don't think Zeus is real, or Athene, or Apollo. Just because Homer sang of these deities and their intervention with the Trojan War, doesn't make me believe it. However, I think there could be a kernel of facts which Homer's epic is built around. I think the same is true of the King Arthur stories, and also the stories about Jesus. So I regard Agamemnon, Arthur and Jesus about on the same level of credibility as historical figures -- probably once-living men, but so enshrouded in myth and tales of the supernatural that their actual, flesh-and-blood lives are hopelessly lost to us as historians.

[ April 16, 2002: Message edited by: Wyrdsmyth ]</p>

braces_for_impact

I myself was startled to know that Jesus may not have existed. In the US as in many countries, it's considered a given and few doubt it. When I first heard of this, of course I had to research. I can say to date, I have not found any convincing evidence that Jesus did indeed exist. I have found the lack of information concerning this supposedly famous person troubling, however. As for the argument against Jesus, there are a few, and they are difficult to find. One good resource is ironically, The Catholic Encyclopedia. I found an interesting quote from Pope Leo the X. "What profit has not that fable of Christ brought us! The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, by Barbara Walker, p. 471. Rev. Taylor, in The Diegesis, reports a slightly different version of Leo X's admission: "It was well known how profitable this fable of Christ has been to us."

Then of course you have the Gnostics, whom insisted that god would never take human form, and challenged the early catholic church at every turn. Insisting that there is no Jesus.

On a personal level, I find it difficult to believe that this Jesus, whom supposedly made such a huge splash with his teachings and miracles didn't end up being wrote about by various other religions, geographic neighbors, enemies, etc.

I have often heard theists insist that others cast doubt on any "proof" found of Jesus, so no evidence will ever be enough. There's two problems I have with this. 1) Since proving Jesus existed does nothing to prove his divinity, I see no reason to deny his existence, regardless of personal beliefs. 2)The early catholic church is well known for it's lies and interpolations. It was done so often by the early catholic church, that a new term was composed for it. 'Pious Fraud'. This alone makes anything from that source and time period highly suspect. It also unfortunately, as a basis for every modern type of xtianity that exists, calls into question those religious doctrines as well; regardless of how much these other forms of xtianity try to distance themselves from their parent dogma.