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

[abaris]

And as I said, Tacticus would be the last person to paint an ''ideal'' given that hated Christians and saw them as evil.

Yeah, and thanks about leaving out the agenda part in my post, since it obviously didn't suit your needs.

And thank you very much, I've read the Tacitus quote in Latin. Point stands, hearsay put into writing. Which is usual for every writer at the time. Also, if you find the time between moving in circles, look up what the term "historian" meant back then compared to our present definition.

While you're at it, you should also look up what modern history has to say about Nero, as opposed to Tacitus and how credible Tacitus' work is for modern history.

[TheMessiah]

And as I said, Tacticus would be the last person to paint an ''ideal'' given that hated Christians and saw them as evil.

Yeah, and thanks about leaving out the agenda part in my post, since it obviously didn't suit your needs.

And thank you very much, I've read the Tacitus quote in Latin. Point stands, hearsay put into writing. Which is usual for every writer at the time. Also, if you find the time between moving in circles, look up what the term "historian" meant back then compared to our present definition.

What agenda post? I quoted your full post, unless you edited it?

Anyway, Tacticus was a Roman senator and his writings have given modern historians a lot of insight into the Greco-Roman world, a lot of modern insight comes from early Greek historians; he isn't just ''someone who repeats claims'' --- it is dubious to think an aristocrat like Tacticus, who as I pointed out, did not repeat hearsay would parrot the claims of Christians, who at the time were looked down upon --- if he had an ''agenda'' he would be actively trying to undermine the Christians. The claim Tacticus acknowledged was actually the most embarrassing part of the Christian's belief - which was how their founder died, via cross.

Hence, Tacticus made it clear that he would not repeat hearsay - it becomes difficult to imagine why he would repeat the claims of a group of people he hated.

[abaris]

Hence, Tacticus made it clear that he would not repeat hearsay - it becomes difficult to imagine why he would repeat the claims of a group of people he hated.

So, I take it, you will not read up on what modern history has to say about Nero and Tacitus and what the word historian meant in the old days. Fine with me, just don't expect me to take you seriously.

And look at the previous page for what I said about transporting an agenda.

I can only say, I have it up to the eyeballs with people not knowing the first thing about the scientific methods of historical text analysis and take everything they learned at school or gathered from the internet at face value.

[TheMessiah]

Hence, Tacticus made it clear that he would not repeat hearsay - it becomes difficult to imagine why he would repeat the claims of a group of people he hated.

So, I take it, you will not read up on what modern history has to say about Nero and Tacitus and what the word historian meant in the old days. Fine with me, just don't expect me to take you seriously.

And look at the previous page for what I said about transporting an agenda.

I can only say, I have it up to the eyeballs with people not knowing the first thing about the scientific methods of historical text analysis and take everything they learned at school or gathered from the internet at face value.

I have read about Tacticus and I'm aware of historians from the Greco-Roman world - and I still think you're shifting goal-posts from saying there was no evidence, to then trying to undermine the scholar himself; Tacticus is considered one of the greatest and most skeptical historians of the time, yes, historians are better now-a-days, but what Tacticus noted was actually not that big of a claim - just acknowledging cruxification.

I think I am just going to have to respectfully agree to disagree with you.

[CapnAwesome]

"Even without looking at the Gospel material"?

How can the Gospels be counted as evidence of Jesus? They are the claim.

All a Gospel is is an account of the life of Jesus. That's what Gospel means.

[CapnAwesome]

Yes, we know about him from Philo and Josephus and his own inscriptions and coins.

The French Revolution happened.  But a Tale of Two Cities is still fiction.

Atlanta burned during the Civil War.   Gone With The Wind is still fiction.

See a pattern?

If in the future other evidence was destroyed and all we had left about the Civil war was Gone with the Wind, we could still learn a great deal about it from there. You ever read Marco Polo? That's an invaluable historical document that's mostly madeup horsecrap. Even things like Christopher Columbus's Journal is mostly made up shit. That's just how documents in the anicient world worked. Its not the modern world and holding ancient evidence to that standard is the main reason that Mythisists aren't taken seriously. If they dropped that I think the movement would gain more traction.

[CapnAwesome]

It's not a Theist claim. It's a Historical claim. There is a difference.

On the same lines as global warming denying is a scientific claim. Truth is there's neither evidence for Jesus existing nor for his non existence. There can be a lot of speculations, but there's no evidence to be presented, since - to our present knowledge - there is none.

I don't understand what people mean on here a lot when they say 'no evidence' There is lots of evidence on both sides, just that evidence is of varying quality.

[CapnAwesome]

You'd be the first to deny that all the other gods ever written about had a similar historical grain of truth, Mess.  If we don't need a historical Osiris or Vishnu to create religions we don't need any fucking jesus, either.

There is such a world of difference between saying that God is real and that Jesus is likely based on a real person. What's crazy is that the people on these boards can't seperate it. For many Internet Atheists Christ-Mythism has become Dogma. Doubt it (despite the fact most Atheist and Agnostic historians also doubt it) and you are cast out of the tribe and somehow your Atheism is called into question. I'm totally secure in being an Atheist. Probably more virulent about it than most people on these boards. But I still think it's likely that the Jesus figure was based on someone. There is really no reason for him not to be. If the historical standard that Jesus-mythisists hold him to was what was used in history, then there is no evidence for Ghenghis Khan.

[The Grand Nudger]

"There really is no reason for him not to be" isn't a very compelling historical argument for jesus, even as a man.  There's really no reason that there could'nt have been a guy named steve who lived at my address twenty years ago - and yet there was not. I'm not disagreeing with you at all, there really -isn't- any reason that jesus or steve couldn't have been real...but that is irrelevant to a mythicist position. The mythicist position (one of many positions in this category, tbt) is that the -jesus of text- is a jesus of myth and legend. If there is/was a real man....it is simply not to be found -in the text-.

[CapnAwesome]

"There really is no reason for him not to be" isn't a very compelling historical argument for jesus, even as a man.  There's really no reason that there could'nt have been a guy named steve who lived at my address twenty years ago - and yet there was not.  I'm not disagreeing with you at all, there really -isn't- any reason that jesus or steve couldn't have been real...but that is irrelevant to a mythicist position.  The mythicist position (one of many positions in this category, tbt) is that the -jesus of text- is a jesus of myth and legend.  If there is/was a real man....it is simply not to be found -in the text-.

*bold mine


I think that you are misstating the mythsist position, at least the one that I've heard. When it comes to Atheist and Agnostic historians, say like Bart Erhman or the one that the opening post quotes, obviously they don't believe in the Jesus of the texts. That's because the texts mention god and have tons of supernature mumbo jumbo in them. My understand of the mythisist position is that there was never even a person to start with. That Jesus wasn't based on a human being at all and made up after the fact.

Now I'm going to make a couple of statements on that. Number one and I think this is important, is that I don't really think it matters at all. Mythsists somehow act like their position is more anti-christian than other people, as though it's some sort of contest. Now you take your average internet-mythisist (and the internet greatly exaggerates how common this belief is) and compare him to someone who believes that there was a historical delusional man in the 1st century who believed himself to be the Jewish Messiah (in fact we know there were several) then I don't see position 1 as any more or less 'Atheist' or anti-christian than position 2. However most Atheists online act as though you aren't a proper atheist at all unless you buy into Jesus-mythisism.

Now the reason that I think there was likely a historical basis for Jesus is that the evidence that there is for him is about analogous to other historical figures of his importance. A historical, non-magical Jesus is basically not an important figure in the Roman age. The Gospels come only 30ish years after his death, which for the time, is relatively quick. By comparison Ghenghis Khan, who was a vastly more important historical figure at the time, wasn't written about until almost 100 years after his death. Also like Jesus much that was written about him included the supernatural. That's just how things were done back then and trying to apply modern standards of evidence to ancient peoples is just silly and makes the mythisist movement look very amateur.

I think if you are to say there is made up magical stuff in the gospels and therefore there can't be a real man behind it is similar to saying that Marco Polo's journey didn't really happen because there is a lot of made up and magical things that he wrote about on the journey. Again, made up and magical is in many, if not most ancient writings. It's getting around that that is tricky. If you were to throw out everything that has magical stuff in it when it comes to ancient documents than very few people existed in the ancient world. So when you say that there is no historical Jesus to be found in the Gospels or by the oral tradition that clearly existed leading up to the writing of the Gospels, I think that you can strip away the supernatural (the same way we do as historians with Ghenghis Khan and Marco Polo) and find a historical person, get some basic understanding of what might have happened in his life. Now I am open minded about that we really can't know that much about him, but the mythisist arguments that I've come across commonly mostly rely on applying modern standards to the ancient world and that is the heart of why they on unconvincing.