Historian explains why Jesus ''mythers'' aren't taken seriously by most Historians

[Minimalist]

I just picked this up at TTA - thanks to Tonechaser77 for posting it.  Robert M. Price recaps and demolishes page after page of jesus freak horseshit in 40 of the most useful minutes you will ever spend on the subject.


http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/forum/...#pid795975

[Minimalist]

But why is any of this important?

It's not. I just enjoy shitting on stupid atheists like Brakeman and Min in the same way I take pleasure in ridiculing dumb religious beliefs.

Better check out Price's video, dumbass.

[Mudhammam]

Better check out Price's video, dumbass.

I don't give two fucks about "Jesus freak horseshit" anymore than I do the sick shriekings of a dying rat, which your peevish sallies frequently call to mind.

[TimOneill]

I didn't read the OP, nor do I intend to.  Tim O'Neill is an 'historian' in roughly the same sense that  Dr. Seuss is a surgeon. 

Boru

First of all, I have never claimed to be a historian.  I'm afraid I can't control what others claim on my behalf.  But your dodging of the arguments I presented on these flaccid grounds is noted.

My own opinion on this (unlike O'Neill, I'm an actual historian, by education and training, if not by profession)

I see.  So, given that I too am "an actual historian, by education and training, if not by profession", it seems you are as much of a non-historian as I am.  Or as much of an amateur historian as I am.  So let's see what kind of analysis your "education and training" has equipped you for:

the situation is pretty closely mirrored by the 'Arthur of Britain' problem

It is?  Strange then that there is a general acceptance that a historical Jesus existed and yet no such consensus on a historical Arthur at all, beyond some "maybes".  How could this be if the two cases "closely mirror" each other? Let's see ...

In both cases, we have 'histories' of dubious reliability - and with a pretty clear bias -, penned long after the events they relate, in which the central figure is credited with remarkable/miraculous abilities.  In both cases, we have a central figure who seems tied to actual, historic events (the reign of Tiberius, the Battle of Mount Badon), but not even a scintilla of undisputed physical evidence.

Well, aside from that last weird bit about "physical evidence" (something which we have for virtually no major figures in the ancient world), this is all more or less true.  As far as it goes.  The problems lie in the stuff you didn't bother to mention.  For example, do we have two mentions of Arthur as a historical person written within a century of his reported death?  Ummm, no we don't.  The very first reference to him is in Nennius, dating to the ninth century.  So that's at least 300 years later.  So we have nothing that "mirrors" the references to Jesus as a historical figure in Tacitus Annals XV and Josephus Antiquities XX (leaving the Antiquities XVIII reference aside for the moment).  More importantly, do we have a letter dating to within 20 years of Arthur's death where the writer refers to meeting Arthur's brother and best friend?  Clearly we don't. So we also have nothing that "mirrors" what Paul says in Galatians 1:19.

This means that to pretend that the evidence we have for Jesus and for Arthur "mirrors" each other is patent nonsense.  And the reason the existence of a historical Jesus is generally accepted as most likely while that of a historical Arthur is regarded as much more uncertain is simple - the evidence for Jesus is far, far better.

So if your clumsy analysis above is evidence of your historical "education and training", I'd say you need to go back to school.

[TimOneill]

Tim O'Neill, An atheist who has studied the scholarship on the historical Jesus, his Jewish socio-religious context and the origins of Christianity for over 25 years.

I wonder what Tim O'Neil has to say about this?


The 'Oxford Classical Dictionary', one of the foremost authorities on the Greco-Roman world, does not have an entry for Jeshua Ben Yusef?


http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.co...alify.html


"The 3rd. ed. continues the title:  The Oxford Classical Dictionary: The Ultimate Reference Work on the Classical World includes more than 6,200 entries, but again fails to provided any entry on Jesus nor has it any use for the New Testament as a historical record.  Although the entry on Josephus is expanded in the newer editions, the Dictionary dismisses the Testimonium Flavianum account on Jesus as reliable history in just one sentence: “The famous testimonium to Jesus is partly or even wholly an interpolation.” (p. 798)

Likewise, there are no entries on Gospels, New Testament, nor does the Dictionary list a single reference  to any Biblical book under its section: Abbreviations Used in the Present Work   A. General  B. Authors and Books in its 75 pages."


I don't believe Oxford are in the 'fringe', are they?  

Well, let's see.  Since I have full access to the Oxford Classical Dictionary online via my university, it was pretty easy to do a search on it and see if they regard Jesus as a historical figure.  A few seconds with the search tool and I got no less than 25 references to him in the work, of which at least seven are to the historical man and not to the figure at the centre of Christian beliefs.

So why doesn't he get his own entry?  Because this is the Oxford Classical Dictionary - a research resource on the Greco-Roman world.  The Jewish sphere was at best marginal to that world and much of the time actively sought to be separate from it.  So Jesus doesn't get a separate entry, but is mentioned in entries that are relevant to the Greco-Roman world.  Such as, not surprisingly, the one on Christianity.  In the same way, searches on other historical Jewish figures of the time turned up no separate entries but some references in other entries relevant to Classical history (eg Hillel, John the Baptist) or no entry or references at all (Caiaphas, Theudas, Athronges).

So which Oxford dictionary would we expect to find entries on these Jewish figures that are absent from the Oxford Classical Dictionary ?  Not surprisingly, we'd expect to find them in the Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion.  And there we find a detailed entry on Jesus, on pages 395-6.  As we'd expect.

So this rather stupid blog post by this Harry H. McHall guy is yet another example of Jesus mythers not thinking things through.

[TheMessiah]

I didn't read the OP, nor do I intend to.  Tim O'Neill is an 'historian' in roughly the same sense that  Dr. Seuss is a surgeon. 

Boru

First of all, I have never claimed to be a historian.  I'm afraid I can't control what others claim on my behalf.  But your dodging of the arguments I presented on these flaccid grounds is noted.

My own opinion on this (unlike O'Neill, I'm an actual historian, by education and training, if not by profession)

I see.  So, given that I too am "an actual historian, by education and training, if not by profession", it seems you are as much of a non-historian as I am.  Or as much of an amateur historian as I am.  So let's see what kind of analysis your "education and training" has equipped you for:

the situation is pretty closely mirrored by the 'Arthur of Britain' problem

It is?  Strange then that there is a general acceptance that a historical Jesus existed and yet no such consensus on a historical Arthur at all, beyond some "maybes".  How could this be if the two cases "closely mirror" each other? Let's see ...

In both cases, we have 'histories' of dubious reliability - and with a pretty clear bias -, penned long after the events they relate, in which the central figure is credited with remarkable/miraculous abilities.  In both cases, we have a central figure who seems tied to actual, historic events (the reign of Tiberius, the Battle of Mount Badon), but not even a scintilla of undisputed physical evidence.

Well, aside from that last weird bit about "physical evidence" (something which we have for virtually no major figures in the ancient world), this is all more or less true.  As far as it goes.  The problems lie in the stuff you didn't bother to mention.  For example, do we have two mentions of Arthur as a historical person written within a century of his reported death?  Ummm, no we don't.  The very first reference to him is in Nennius, dating to the ninth century.  So that's at least 300 years later.  So we have nothing that "mirrors" the references to Jesus as a historical figure in Tacitus Annals XV and Josephus Antiquities XX (leaving the Antiquities XVIII reference aside for the moment).  More importantly, do we have a letter dating to within 20 years of Arthur's death where the writer refers to meeting Arthur's brother and best friend?  Clearly we don't.  So we also have nothing that "mirrors" what Paul says in Galatians 1:19.

This means that to pretend that the evidence we have for Jesus and for Arthur "mirrors" each other is patent nonsense.  And the reason the existence of a historical Jesus is generally accepted as most likely while that of a historical Arthur is regarded as much more uncertain is simple - the evidence for Jesus is far, far better.

So if your clumsy analysis above is evidence of your historical "education and training", I'd say you need to go back to school.

That was....beautiful Tim...

[Mudhammam]

patent nonsense.

Don't expect much more from these kids.

[robvalue]

I just picked this up at TTA - thanks to Tonechaser77 for posting it.  Robert M. Price recaps and demolishes page after page of jesus freak horseshit in 40 of the most useful minutes you will ever spend on the subject.


http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/forum/...#pid795975

Very interesting vid, thanks

Jesus' ass really hurts after that.

If there are any christians reading, he also challenges beliefs in some very interesting ways. I'd recommend checking it out if you're at all interested in challenging yourself.

[TimOneill]

I just picked this up at TTA - thanks to Tonechaser77 for posting it.  Robert M. Price recaps and demolishes page after page of jesus freak horseshit in 40 of the most useful minutes you will ever spend on the subject.


http://www.thethinkingatheist.com/forum/...#pid795975

Very interesting vid, thanks

Jesus' ass really hurts after that.

If there are any christians reading, he also challenges beliefs in some very interesting ways. I'd recommend checking it out if you're at all interested in challenging yourself.

And this is one of the problems I have with presenting this weak Myther stuff as the antidote to Christian belief.  Anyone with a brain can see that pointing out that there is far more evidence for a Roman emperor than there is for a Jewish preacher from the back of nowhere and so concluding that the preacher didn't is not making an argument of any coherence, let alone one of any power.  Ditto for noting that there are elements in the gospels which are clearly not meant to be read historically or which are clearly reflections of later concerns, rather than reflections of historical events and then leaping acrobatically from that to "so Jesus didn't exist".  These aren't even good arguments, let alone "challenging" ones.  When atheists use this kind of weak crap to make their case against Christianity they just look like idiots.

There are far better and genuinely challenging arguments made by scholars who can actually get a job somewhere other than the "Johnnie Colemon Theological Seminary" (which is in desperate need of a decent web designer as well as better faculty members).  Ones that are actually based on coherent history, detailed textual analysis and understanding of things like Jewish apocalypcism and the evidence that shows Jesus was very much a part of his Jewish world.  But while people keep following nobodies like Price on this Myther wild goose chase they will continue to look exactly like the atheist equivalent to Creationists.

[robvalue]

Erm, OK. I wasn't talking about that, he makes unrelated points about what the christian beliefs actually mean in real terms a bit further into the video. What it means to say they have a "personal relationship with Jesus" and so on.