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

[Mudhammam]

I expect historicists will appeal to the same arguments in the future as well---so long as the pseudoskeptics proclaiming opposition appeal to the same lousy illogic, obfuscate issues such as theism/atheism with questions of historical fact, repeat their pathetic analogies, ignore the data, and reassert their grandiose alternative explanations without any sound or valid reason whatsoever.

[Brakeman]

I expect historicists will appeal to the same arguments in the future as well---so long as  the pseudoskeptics proclaiming opposition appeal to the same lousy illogic, obfuscate issues such as theism/atheism with questions of historical fact, repeat their pathetic analogies, ignore the data, and reassert their grandiose alternative explanations without any sound or valid reason whatsoever.

I haven't seen any of these examples of illogic, issue obfuscation, or data ignorings, what I've seen is theistic bluster and repeated appeals to authority without regards to the bias of the claimed authorities as a group..

The ease of research of today will destroy your precious "consensus" of dishonest christians masquerading as "historians." The percentage of superstitious nonsense believers is dropping but is still the majority. When the enlightenment continues and the social pear pressure of the christians is broken, then the freedom to read the evidence will decide what we do and do not have sufficient reason to claim as historical.

[Mudhammam]

I expect historicists will appeal to the same arguments in the future as well---so long as  the pseudoskeptics proclaiming opposition appeal to the same lousy illogic, obfuscate issues such as theism/atheism with questions of historical fact, repeat their pathetic analogies, ignore the data, and reassert their grandiose alternative explanations without any sound or valid reason whatsoever.

I haven't seen any of these examples of illogic, issue obfuscation, or data ignorings, what I've seen is theistic bluster and repeated appeals to authority without regards to the bias of the claimed authorities as a group..

The ease of research of today will destroy your precious "consensus" of dishonest christians masquerading as "historians." The percentage of superstitious nonsense believers is dropping but is still the majority. When the enlightenment continues and the social pear pressure of the christians is broken, then the freedom to read the evidence will decide what we do and do not have sufficient reason to claim as historical.

Do you know what theism means? It doesn't appear you do. Anyway, it's irrelevant to any of the arguments made in the OP or elsewhere in this thread. And if by "ease of research," you mean looking up and regurgitating what some amateur mythicist (like D.M. Murdock) writes on the internet, you might want to look into the volumes of textbooks that have been written by, you know, both secular and religious academics---unless you think the latter are unqualified to make an argument, in which case you might want to look up the definition of ad hominem after you've finished grasping what theism means.

As for your claim that there is a conspiracy barring mythicists from intelligentsia (strange, I swear I've heard other people make that appeal to pity before too), you do realize mythicism is not new, right? It was once held by some respectable scholars... in the 19th century. Yeah, you're a little slow to this game in more ways than one.

[Minimalist]

But WHERE is the evidence.  If a historian accepts a fairy tale it makes you feel all warm.

Are you certain you haven't just pissed your pants?

Here you go again --- you do realize that none of what you're saying sounds rational? It sounds incredibly anti-rational and desperate. Historians are ''accepting'' a fairy tale? These people are experts in their field - and it's pretty desperate for you to attempt to dismiss what they do because you personally don't agree with the same claims.

Do you think it's credible to say climate-change is a Liberal conspiracy?

Also, here is the /r/askhistorians page, aside from the Gospels etc (which are analysed in the historical world), there are several non-Biblical sources which historians analyse.

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/co...cal_jesus/

http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/wiki/faq/religion



From your citation:

sorted by:

best

[–]qed1 14 points 3 years ago* 
Well the real trick to this question is:

I'm curious about hard evidence.

Because depending on how you define hard evidence you can show both sides.
That being said, the generally held view is that there was a guy called Jesus who lived in the right place at the right time whose life roughly conforms to the biblical narrative (ie. he drew crowds and was killed by the romans).
The primary source for this is of course the bible, though the Jewish historian Josephus is another major source.

The bold part is exactly the problem.  Your bible is a pile of shit. 

The italic part is almost laughable.  We have one serious forgery and one minor forgery and THAT is your evidence.

Sorry, bozo.  Not near good enough.


P.S.  If that is the "best" answer you are really and truly fucked flat.  

[Minimalist]

Wow....I deliberately left this thread alone today and many of you guys did an excellent job battling the nut job.

The old "historians say" argument really took it up the ass from you guys, today.  Well done!

[robvalue]

Let's see if I got this straight:

The HJ camp say there was a preacher called Yeshua who claimed to be the son of God, and was crucified.

The mythicists do not deny this possibility, but in fact say that this isn't enough information to accurately identify one single person; or even if it was, we can't be sure it's the person actually being identified, or that the myth isn't also based on other people. Let's face it, when almost the entirely story is mythical/unverifiable, it's a pretty big assumption that no other real people didn't creep in somewhere.

So really, the differences are pretty minor here, as far as I can see. HJ-ers are confident enough they have found "one person" with this criteria, and mythicists say they probably have not. But neither claim (I hope) that the "life story" of Jesus that we have is actually accurate, so the "Jesus character" is not a real person.

I see this very basic HJ position as so similar to the mythicist position that I don't feel the need to "identify" as either, and I don't understand the infighting. It's when people get carried away and start supposing we can know much more about Jesus that I start pulling a face.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

The gospels are a collection of campfire tales floating around at the time. Someone simply compiled them.

So the better question is why were they compiled? What was the agenda? Did sommeone commission them?

Even apart from the supernatural elements in the Jesus account, there are fallacies concerning Roman legal procedures, especially in the province of Judea at the time. We're not even talking about a trial against a Roman citizen but about a jewish trouble maker, who was nothing but scum in the eyes of the Roman authorities. Dangerous scum if he really claimed to be the king of jews and it's next to impossible that one of his disciples or family members would have breathed even one second longer than wonder boy himself. The Romans weren't chicken hearted when someone questioned their authority. The best thing they could hope for was being shipped as slave material to some provincial market, but even that is unlikely.

Pilate finding no fault in a man claiming to be the king of jews is ludicrous. Also offering him up for amnesty. The jewish priests, who were string puppets of the Romans at the time in question, don't stand the realtiy check either. And the list goes on and on, down to the disposal of bodies when someone was crucified.

The problem with this is that you're assuming Jesus was truly a threat to Roman authority.

In all likelihood, he wasn't as big a threat as he is made out; there were many false messiah's at the time, who all claimed the same thing. He wasn't the only person who claimed to be king of the Jews. The difference with Jesus is his death --- he died, for a messiah, an utterly embarrassing death. The Jewish messiah was described to be a warrior, and yet Jesus was just a dude who got crucified, which put his followers in an askward position. 

Had Jesus truly been fictional, then I doubt Christianity would exist, ecause the Jews would not have altered the story to have their messiah die a criminal's death - it makes no sense; in comparison to a radical Jew getting killed and then his followers being forced to reconcile that death with their own faith.

Jesus was mostly a threat to the Jewish priests, who were concerned with this radical preachings and the consequences that would have on their system of control - Jesus was a trouble-maker - thus, the Jewish priests most likely convinced the Romans to kill him.

Jesus was a reformer in the sense that he tried to reform the Jewish faith, his threat was to Jewish authority moreso than Roman.

In the Babylonian Talmud the Jews brag about killing Jesus using five different methods.  So based on that they didn't give a damn about Jesus as their messiah.  

[Longhorn]

But why is any of this important?

[robvalue]

Haha! It's not, which is why I can't understand why some people get so worked up about it.

I'm trying to figure out what would cause such friction when the positions are so similar.

Also, it's kind of funny Lame ass Jesus.

[TheMessiah]

I expect historicists will appeal to the same arguments in the future as well---so long as the pseudoskeptics proclaiming opposition appeal to the same lousy illogic, obfuscate issues such as theism/atheism with questions of historical fact, repeat their pathetic analogies, ignore the data, and reassert their grandiose alternative explanations without any sound or valid reason whatsoever.

I agree, you are much better at articulating it than I am.