Where did the Jesus myth come from?

[FallentoReason]

Hey Atom, why do the epistles consistently reject the idea of a physical Christ?

Because at the time of their writing Jesus had already been crucified. I'm not sure why this would seem odd to you. Can you clarify what you think is significant about the verses you quoted.

Sure, Jesus had been crucified. What makes you think this crucifixion happened in an earthly setting though? There's nothing that seems to suggest that in the epistles.

The verses I quoted tell us about how things have been made known about Jesus, but they omit any sort of earthly messiah being the one responsible for this. I mean, just have a look at Ephesians!

When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit.

How can they possibly say the mysteries have recently been revealed through the OT and Spirit? Doesn't the Creator himself as a human count for anything??? There's no mention of that ever!

This question doesn't make sense in terms of the biblical chronology. They didn't have to turn a blind eye.

Please explain.

Where did you get the idea that Jesus' ministry could have been 1 year? That's a rather unique assessment.

It's a theory some people propose. It's a trivial point that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things.

What do you regard as ignorant in these verses?

Saying that these apostles have had these revelations but never once acknowledging that Jesus walked on earth, which I'm sure would greatly aid people in getting an understanding of things. This suggests it didn't take an earthly messiah to trigger what we now call Christianity. This also suggests that the Gospels aren't literal history.

The thing is though, that it actually isn't ignorant of these early Christians to not refer to any earthly messiah. We owe them for starting up this religion which means THEY are the ones that define what Christianity is. Therefore they're not ignorant, WE'RE the ones that are not understanding something. The problem with this though, is that once people put this idea forward of an earthly messiah without any real reason, it's hard to then shake off the wrong interpretation, the reason being that this baseless assertion of an earthly messiah produces a mountain of arguments from silence that play against it. Arguments from silence aren't particularly strong, but when the silence/gap in evidence for an earthly messiah is this big, it just begs the question of why you would think Jesus was a human in the first place.

Jesus said some pretty mysterious things such as predicting his resurrection, that the Pharisees were wrong about all their rules (such as how many steps a person could walk on the Sabbath), that he was speaking for God, and that the Holy Spirit would guide his followers.

Except we can't factor these things in when considering what the mystery was, because no epistle writer ever mentions events found in the Gospels. The only thing that gets spoken about the the crucifixion and resurrection.

The Jews believed that the Christ would be a military leader. Instead, they found that he was much more than that. The references to the Profits are talking about prophecies such as Isiahi 53. Paul's letters spend a tremendous amount of time talking about Jesus and his ministry.

Please show me where Paul acknowledges Jesus' earthly ministry.

You seem confident that you understand. Are you a credentialed scholar of higher criticism?

I am not. I'm simply a free thinker that hasn't found any solid reasons for thinking the Christ of the Bible ever set foot on earth.

On a side note, let me explain why the early Christians can refer to a crucifixion while still making it possible for Jesus not to be human. It all comes back to an understanding of the mentality of the era. There were many mystery cults that all believed in their own form of a saviour god. The one that I know the most about is Mithraism, which we know had the same rituals as modern-day Catholics (eating the body and blood of the saviour god, putting oil on the forehead..) as described by the Christian Justin Martyr in the 2nd century. These people believed that Mithra had killed a bull and they made shrines which depicted this act. Along with these depictions there's usually an inscription which reads 'Us too you have saved by shedding blood which grants eternity'. Now as if that isn't 'devastating' enough for Christianity, it was also believed by these people that this act was done somewhere in the cosmos. This is evident because the depiction consisted of the bull, a scorpion, a raven on Mithra's shoulder, a serpent and a dog lapping at the fatal wound. This is clearly a map of the heavens where each animal represents its respective constellation (Taurus, Scorpio, Canis Major/Minor, Hydra and Corvus). What this translates to is that it was perfectly normal to believe that some human-like god did some sort of act somewhere in the heavens for us. Well... what do we gather from the epistles? The mystery of Christ Jesus was revealed to the apostles through scripture and the Spirit, that Christ was crucified & resurrected therefore granting eternal life for whoever believes. Did this happen on earth? Well, going by the early Christians themselves, I don't think so.

[Strongbad]

...(I was an atheist and hard-core naturalist for 25+ years before becoming a Christian).

So when you were an atheist, you:

• Believed that ALL religions were contrived by men, and ALL were works of fiction
• Did not accept the claims made by religious people or their “holy” books
• Believed that religious people, of all “faiths” were misguided at best, and delusional at worst
• Believed that physical reality was all that there was, and stories of “creation”, deities, spirits, angels, demons, souls, etc., were merely fantasies

And then somehow you became convinced that Christianity was no longer to be grouped as a falsehood with all other religions, because it is actually the one religion that is true. That the god you now “believe in” is actually real, and that he really did create the universe, and that he really does rule over it. That angels, demons, spirits, etc., are actually real. And that after your death you will be resurrected and you will live forever in the presence of this god.

For some reason, I don’t believe you were ever an atheist, and the fact that you are making that claim is some lame attempt at an appeal to authority. I say bullshit.

[Minimalist]

Jesus said some pretty mysterious things such as predicting his resurrection,

We don't know that "jesus" said anything. All we have are much later writings which have been conclusively shown to have been edited to suit the evolving doctrines of the church.

When you can come up with a manuscript written by your godboy then you can talk about what he said. Until then, it is just (dubious) reports of what he said.

And that, my friend, is fairly unimpressive.

[Atom]

Nothing in this post suggests Jesus mythers are wrong SOLELY by virtue of the fact that they are in the minority.

Yet we keep waiting for actual evidence that your godboy was walking around turning water into wine and healing lepers and all we get are the same..."all real scholars think so.... and then there are the gospels!"

That wasn't the topic we were discussing.

Well, one of those scholars is Ehrman and he shits all over those gospels.

That's what make Ehrman's statement that Jesus was a real person very credible. A thousand Christian apologists saying the same thing wouldn't have nearly the credibility.

Surely, even you can see that your case is exceptionally shitty? It's built on air and guesswork.

It's built on data. Most critical scholars not only believe Jesus existed, but they also believe the following are true of Jesus.
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. He was buried.
3. His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope.
4. The tomb was empty (the most contested).
5. The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus (the most important proof).
6. The disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers.
7. The resurrection was the central message.
8. They preached the message of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem.
9. The Church was born and grew.
10. Orthodox Jews who believed in Christ made Sunday their primary day of worship.
11. James was converted to the faith when he saw the resurrected Jesus (James was a family skeptic).
12. Paul was converted to the faith (Paul was an outsider skeptic).

Disclaimer: This isn't a proof, just powerful inductive evidence. The majority opinion isn't the point of this post. The point is that critics like Bart Ehrman are strongly disinclined to accept historical evidence that isn't reasonably convincing by historical methods and standard. They don't accept historical assertions on faith and can't be dismissed as overzealous ideologues. Does this prove they are right? That would be impossible, it's not how history works.

[Jackalope]

It's built on data. Most critical scholars not only believe Jesus existed, but they also believe the following are true of Jesus.
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. He was buried.
3. His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope.
4. The tomb was empty (the most contested).
5. The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus (the most important proof).

These elements in particular are not proof. They are part of the claim.

Try again.

[Minimalist]

That's what make Ehrman's statement that Jesus was a real person very credible. A thousand Christian apologists saying the same thing wouldn't have nearly the credibility.

Hogwash. He is still not providing evidence. His assertions are not more valuable than your own.

I do not want the assertions of "scholars." I want to see the evidence so I can evaluate it to make up my own mind.

Do you grasp the concept?

[Forsaken]

It's built on data. Most critical scholars not only believe Jesus existed, but they also believe the following are true of Jesus.
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. He was buried.
3. His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope.
4. The tomb was empty (the most contested).
5. The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus (the most important proof).
6. The disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers.
7. The resurrection was the central message.
8. They preached the message of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem.
9. The Church was born and grew.
10. Orthodox Jews who believed in Christ made Sunday their primary day of worship.
11. James was converted to the faith when he saw the resurrected Jesus (James was a family skeptic).
12. Paul was converted to the faith (Paul was an outsider skeptic).

Most Islamic critical scholars think of the same for Mohammed and most Hindu scholars think of the same for Ram and Krishna. So how does this make your case stronger for Christianity only?

[DeistPaladin]

It's built on data. Most critical scholars not only believe Jesus existed, but they also believe the following are true of Jesus.

Since it's all based on data, you shouldn't have any trouble proving any of it.

In advance:
The Bible = mythology, not proof.
Church folklore =/= proof.
Raw assertions =/= proof.

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.

Prove it

2. He was buried.

Prove it.

3. His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope.

Prove it.

4. The tomb was empty (the most contested).

Prove it. And WHICH tomb? There are two. Three if you count the recent one hyped by Cameron.

5. The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus (the most important proof).

Prove it.

6. The disciples were transformed from doubters to bold proclaimers.

Prove it.

7. The resurrection was the central message.

Prove it. The Ebioites certainly didn't agree. Neither did the Docetics.

8. They preached the message of Jesus’ resurrection in Jerusalem.

Prove it.

9. The Church was born and grew.

Which church? There were many different Christianities. As Ehrman points out in his research, Christianity didn't have a unified story on even basic theological issues until Nicaea.

10. Orthodox Jews who believed in Christ made Sunday their primary day of worship.

More like the pagans who were former sun worshippers that converted to Christianity moved the Sabbath to Sunday, in defiance of commandment #4.

11. James was converted to the faith when he saw the resurrected Jesus (James was a family skeptic).

Prove it.

12. Paul was converted to the faith (Paul was an outsider skeptic).

Prove it.

Disclaimer: This isn't a proof, just powerful inductive evidence.

Actually, it's neither. It's folklore and Christian mythology backed assertions without a shred of proof.

[Jackalope]

proof

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2y8Sx4B2Sk

[Atom]

It's built on data. Most critical scholars not only believe Jesus existed, but they also believe the following are true of Jesus.
1. Jesus died by crucifixion.
2. He was buried.
3. His death caused the disciples to despair and lose hope.
4. The tomb was empty (the most contested).
5. The disciples had experiences which they believed were literal appearances of the risen Jesus (the most important proof).

These elements in particular are not proof. They are part of the claim.
Try again.

This appears to be a straw man or Aunt Sally fallacy. Maybe you didn't see the disclaimer at the end of my post. I can see how it could easily be missed.

---

It's built on data. Most critical scholars not only believe Jesus existed, but they also believe the following are true of Jesus.

Since it's all based on data, you shouldn't have any trouble proving any of it.

In advance:
The Bible = mythology, not proof.
Church folklore =/= proof.
Raw assertions =/= proof.

1. Jesus died by crucifixion.

Prove it
...

Demanding negative proof fallacy: Attempting to avoid the burden of proof for some claim by demanding proof of the contrary from whoever questions that claim.