Proving The Resurrection By the Minimal Facts Approach

[Randy Carson]

The Jesus Myth Theory: A Response to David Fitzgerald
By Tim O'Neill

Randy, I'll read your suggestions, if you'll read what i've been through on the subject:


G.R.S. Mead, Did Jesus live 100 B.C.?: An Enquiry into the Talmud Jesus Stories, the Toldoth Jeschu, and Some Curious Statements of Epiphanius, Being a Contribution to the Study of Christian Origins
 
Alvar Ellegard, Jesus: One Hundred Years Before Christ
 
Burton L. Mack, A Myth of Innocence: Mark and Christian Origins (Foundations & Facets Series)
 
Dennis R. MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark
 
Theodore J. Weeden, Mark: Traditions in Conflict
 
Charles H. Talbert, Luke and the Gnostics;: An Examination of Lucan Purpose
 
Michael D. Goulder, Luke: A New Paradigm
 
C.H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel
 
Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary
 
Benjamin W. Bacon, The Gospel of the Hellenists
 
J.C. O’Neill, The Theology of Acts in its Historical Setting
 
Jack T. Sanders, The Jews in Luke-Acts
 
Richard I. Pervo, Dating Acts : Between the Evangelists and the Apologists
 
Hyam Maccoby, Myth Maker
 
Hyam Maccoby, Paul and Hellenism
 
Arthur Drews, The Christ Myth (Westminster College-Oxford Classics in the Study of Religion)
 
Arthur Drews, Witnesses to the Historicity of Jesus
 
Bruno Bauer, Christ & the Caesars: The Origin of Christianity from Romanized Greek Culture
 
Paul M. Couchoud, The Creation of Christ: An Outline of the Beginning of Christianity,  (2 vols)
 
William Benjamin Smith, The Birth of the Gospel: A Study of the Origin and Purport of the Primitive Allegory of the Jesus
 
William Benjamin Smith, Ecce Deus,: Studies of Primitive Christianity,
 
L. Gordon Rylands, Did Jesus Ever Live?
 
James M. Robertson, Pagan Christs: Studies in Comparative Hierology
 
James M. Robertson, Christianity And Mythology
 
Gerald Massey, The Historical Jesus and the Mythical Christ
 
G.A. Wells, The Jesus of the Early Christians: A Study in Christian origins
 
G.A. Wells, Did Jesus Exist?
 
G.A. Wells, The Historical Evidence for Jesus
 
G.A. Wells, Who Was Jesus?: A Critique of the New Testament Record
 
G.A. Wells, The Jesus Myth
 
G.A. Wells, The Jesus Legend 
 
Earl Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle: Did Christianity Begin with a Mythical Christ? Challenging the Existence of an Historical Jesus
 
Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries: Was the "Original Jesus" a Pagan God? 
 
Acharya S., Suns of God: Krishna, Buddha and Christ Unveiled
 
Tom Harpur, The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light
 
Barbara G. Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets

Richard Carrier, On the Historicity of Jesus, why we may have reason to Doubt

Robert M. Price, Deconstructing Jesus

Robert M. Price, The Christ Myth Theory and its Problems

I don't suppose there's any chance you kept the receipts, is there? You might be able to get your money back.

[tonechaser77]

Yea that's what I thought.

[Randy Carson]

My point, o disingenuous one, is that one of us is defending a character in a story depicting said character as a "moral monster" (to use your own phrase) against the charge of being a moral monster. It doesn't matter if either of us believe it really happened or is a literal anything. Your character's actions would still be astonishingly sick and twisted if carried out by any real person. But if you want to relieve yourself of the task of defending your own mythology, be my guest.

While you're at it, perhaps you'd be so kind as to actually respond to the points I raised, as opposed to dodging them so blatantly?

What points, Stimbo?

That God deliberately set up Adam and Eve by creating what? No literal tree for sure. Then what?

Well, whatever. He created something whatever it was, and He made it SOOOOOOOO appealing that despite the fact that He told them not to what? Eat it? Touch it? Do it?

Well, whatever. He told them not to, but they did it any way, but it wasn't really their fault because they had no real reason to think that they shouldn't despite the fact that they had been told not to?

No, I'm sorry, if you HAVE any points, you're going to have to be a bit more explicit about what exactly you are alleging.

The story of the fall is an allegory which explains that our first parents preferred their own will over submitting their wills to God. As a consequence of that decision, they separated themselves from God, and we are stuck with that consequence without hope of rectifying the situation.

God, however, has provided the way by which we may be reconciled with God: through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

[Cyberman]

No wonder you swallow any old bullshit your cult feeds you, with reading comprehension skills like that. Clearly you're unable to understand anything that doesn't come pre-chewed.

[Randy Carson]

Yea that's what I thought.

What? You expected me to drink the same Kool-Aid that you have gorged upon? Would you be impressed if I rattled off 50 or 60 books from MY bookshelf?

Look, I just read the bio you posted, and I'm sorry you had to go through all that Protestant crap. Really, I am.

But if you've read Ehrman (I haven't and make no secret of that fact) then I believe you should know that he has no use for mythicists like Carrier and Acharya S., and neither does Tim O'Neill who chews them up and spits them out in the article to which I linked.

So, you can bask in the glow of your new-found disbelief, or you can ask yourself why more knowledgeable atheists and skeptics can at least admit that Jesus really did exist without feeling threatened.

Apparently, you are not able to do this.

[Mr.wizard]

My point, o disingenuous one, is that one of us is defending a character in a story depicting said character as a "moral monster" (to use your own phrase) against the charge of being a moral monster. It doesn't matter if either of us believe it really happened or is a literal anything. Your character's actions would still be astonishingly sick and twisted if carried out by any real person. But if you want to relieve yourself of the task of defending your own mythology, be my guest.

While you're at it, perhaps you'd be so kind as to actually respond to the points I raised, as opposed to dodging them so blatantly?

What points, Stimbo?

That God deliberately set up Adam and Eve by creating what? No literal tree for sure. Then what?

Well, whatever. He created something whatever it was, and He made it SOOOOOOOO appealing that despite the fact that He told them not to what? Eat it? Touch it? Do it?

Well, whatever. He told them not to, but they did it any way, but it wasn't really their fault because they had no real reason to think that they shouldn't despite the fact that they had been told not to?

No, I'm sorry, if you HAVE any points, you're going to have to be a bit more explicit about what exactly you are alleging.

The story of the fall is an allegory which explains that our first parents preferred their own will over submitting their wills to God. As a consequence of that decision, they separated themselves from God, and we are stuck with that consequence without hope of rectifying the situation.

God, however, has provided the way by which we may be reconciled with God: through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

I thought he gave us free will, why would he want us to submit our will to him. Why give us free will and then set up a system that punishes us for using it? Also saying it's an allegory does not solve the moral dilemma that the story creates. It is a system that portrays morality as doing what your told whether or not you even understand why and that in my opinion is not a moral system.

[Randy Carson]

No wonder you swallow any old bullshit your cult feeds you, with reading comprehension skills like that. Clearly you're unable to understand anything that doesn't come pre-chewed.

Or maybe your writing skills just suck.

[Cyberman]

You know you're done when you're at the "I know you are - what am I?" stage.

[Randy Carson]

What points, Stimbo?

That God deliberately set up Adam and Eve by creating what? No literal tree for sure. Then what?

Well, whatever. He created something whatever it was, and He made it SOOOOOOOO appealing that despite the fact that He told them not to what? Eat it? Touch it? Do it?

Well, whatever. He told them not to, but they did it any way, but it wasn't really their fault because they had no real reason to think that they shouldn't despite the fact that they had been told not to?

No, I'm sorry, if you HAVE any points, you're going to have to be a bit more explicit about what exactly you are alleging.

The story of the fall is an allegory which explains that our first parents preferred their own will over submitting their wills to God. As a consequence of that decision, they separated themselves from God, and we are stuck with that consequence without hope of rectifying the situation.

God, however, has provided the way by which we may be reconciled with God: through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ.

I thought he gave us free will, why would he want us to submit our will to him.

Bingo!

We choose freely to submit our will to God. If we did not have free will, then it would not be called "submission", would it?

Why give us free will and then set up a system that punishes us for using it?

BZZZZ! Oh, I'm sorry...wrong answer. God didn't punish us for "using it". He holds us accountable for using it to choose wrongly. There is no punishment for choosing to be obedient.

Also saying it's an allegory does not solve the moral dilemma that the story creates. It is a system that portrays morality as doing what your told whether or not you even understand why and that in my opinion is not a moral system.

I'm not sure about whether a moral dilemma exists or not, but doing what we have been told works in just about every area of our lives from the time we are small children until we taking our medications in a retirement home like the doctor ordered.

Even in the account of Adam and Eve, God did tell Adam why:

And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

"Don't eat the fruit, Adam. It will kill you." Sounds like "why" Adam should have obeyed to me.

But on a more serious note, I think it is fair to say that if you were to engage in a serious study of Christianity, you would find more "why" answers to your questions than this brief exchange suggests.

[Randy Carson]

You know you're done when you're at the "I know you are - what am I?" stage.

Or you could just simply re-state your "points" is a more carefully worded post to which I might respond.

It's up to you.