Shit. What The Hell. Jesus Never Existed

[robvalue]

The question for me is what was in the mind of the gospel authors? If it was a human, clearly they didn't know which human in particular as they had no frame of reference outside of gossip. If it was the result of a celestial myth crafted into a human, were they the ones who created this transition? Or had it already happened, and they just picked up on the gossip that resulted?

It could be a combination of both, when whoever it was decided to humanise the celestial myth, they could have roughly based it on an actual person (or the oral accounts of that person) to try and make it more believable.

To me, this is the big question. Trying to randomly find people who fit the profile is kind of irrelevant, in my opinion, because that doesn't tell us what they were really playing at. Clearly they were in the business of making shit up, that's obvious from the fantastical details they include. I think it's a fair estimate that their goal was spreading a religious agenda, but what process did they go through?

Sadly, I think it's impossible we can ever know for sure, we can only take a best guess based on what little information we have. I know for sure, obviously, because I'm special and I'm Jesus. But no one else will know, unless they find out my secret Jesus identity. And that's not likely to happen. I've kept it quiet this long that I'm Jesus.

[Aractus]

And by the way let me just say I'm willing to accept Richard Carrier as a bonefied scholar - however he's just one scholar. Why should his views eclipse those of the majority? Why should he have more influence than other critical scholars?

In the absence of any hard evidence, all we have is what's written, and there are mythicist interpretations that are about as likely as historicist ones, if not more so. The fact that you side with the consensus claim is up to you, but don't act like your position is better or more likely just because more people agree with you. Unless they're agreeing with you for really good reasons (which, considering the level of evidence, they basically can't be), the number of people who believe the same thing you do technically does not matter. For a long time Galileo was virtually the only person who believed the Earth orbits the Sun, and look what happened there.

Also I bet you didn't bother looking at the information I gave you, for example in the interview where Ehrman says that different portrats of Jesus emerged but that there was only really one Jesus - and that's a view that is shard by a majority of scholars. And then I quoted Hurtado saying the same thing:

As for historical Jesus studies, Neil, once again I ask you to see if you can distinguish between the particular constructions of this or that scholar (which often differ) and the agreed basis on which such scholar argue with one another (which is that there is a historical figure to try to characterize rightly). Scholars differ over how rightly to characterize Abraham Lincoln, but they agree that he did exist, and that there is something to try to capture. So, I simply ask you one question, Neil: Do you really want to understand the field of Christian origins, and how scholars go about it, or do you wish to take insufficiently-informed pot-shots from the sidelines? I have little interest in engaging the latter.

In the absence of any hard evidence

I already addressed this. If you'd bothered to listen to the Youtube clip you can hear Erhman say in no uncertain terms "there is hard evidence" for the existence of a historical Jesus.

http://youtu.be/WUQMJR2BP1w

So between Erhman and Hurtado I gave you two critical scholars that say there is hard evidence. You haven't yet given me one that says there isn't - but if you're going to claim that Carrier says that then fine- that's still just one- and he's categorised by his own peers as an outlier- so I would take his view with a grain of salt.

[Redbeard The Pink]

Ok, that is simply not true. Christianity comes along at a time in history when Hellenistic Mystery Cults were extremely common in the Roman Empire

Where's your academic evidence for that assertion?

Fuck, really?

Ok, we're talking 1st to 4th century if we're describing the early spread of Christianity, right? Just a few extant Greco-Roman Mysteries at the time include:

The Cult of Attis
The Cult of Cybele
The Mysteries of Isis
The Dionysian Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries
The Mithraic Mysteries
The Cult of Sabazios
The Samothracean Mysteries

Those were just the ones I could readily find dates for. Of this list, Dionysus is particularly interesting, since he's a both a dying-and-rising god and the grapes for his wine were said to be his living body as they cultivated it...gosh, that's not that much of a stretch from that one dying-and-rising god whose followers believe bread and wine represent his body...who was that guy again? Oh, wait, that's right...

When I say "hard evidence" I mean something other than what was written about him. You telling me that scholars say hard evidence exists is next to meaningless. What evidence?

[Mudhammam]

(Emphasis mine)

Ok, that is simply not true. Christianity comes along at a time in history when Hellenistic Mystery Cults were extremely common in the Roman Empire, and these cults had several things in common:

• They generally blended Hellenistic figures and principles with figures and principles from other cultures
  
• They tended to denote a shift from community religion to a more personal and individual salvation
  
• They tended to center around stories of struggling and/or dying-and-rising gods who originally represented the changing of the seasons in some capacity
  

Considering the religious climate of the time, there is no reason to believe that a Jewish-flavored Mystery Cult wouldn't have sprung up in a form much like the others.

Christianity was borne out of a strain of Hellenistic Judaism, no doubt, but I don't see much in common with any Roman or Greek mystery cults. In fact, the Christians were notoriously repulsed by paganism. As far as dying-and-rising gods, what connection does that have with your claim that the man Jesus was mythical?

Furthermore, there are ample reasons for one or more sects of Jews to invent a fictional messiah character, the foremost of which is that the line of David died out before producing the Messiah it was supposed to. Creating a heavenly Messiah that could be made in the celestial realms out of David's cosmic sperm was a perfect way to solve that problem because there did not have to be a historical story for the visions and scriptures of that story to be accepted.

Um. Okay. So in order to reinvent this dead Davidic line, "they" (the apostles?) create a Messiah who gets humiliated by death on a cross, though of course, being Jews themselves, they know it will be "a stumbling block" to their target audience.

Anyone with an inkling about Jewish expectations vis-à-vis the Messiah knows that he isn't supposed to come and be executed, so you'll have to pull more bullshit out of your ass (which is all your doing now) to explain that one.

Another fun fact...rewriting the gods into historical fictions with extant human characters was also extremely common during this period, hence the version of the gospel story that survives today.

Except that Jesus was "born under the law" (a Jew), of a "woman" (not a goddess), and was crucified and buried ... prior to the composition of the Gospels. That sure is odd language for a celestial being that is yet to be Euhemerized, which, by the way, implies that the Jesus cult is far older than the 1st century - and you are surely wanting evidence for such.

The bottom line is that, in the context of history, it is not that difficult to explain the rise of Christianity under the Christ Myth, even without resorting to conspiracy theories. Christianity is not unique among the religions of the time, and the historicity of Christ has virtually no impact on whether a Jewish Mystery Cult was likely to form. Plenty of the day's religions formed around extant god characters with no historicity.

Yes, you've proven that it's not difficult to explain the rise of Christianity under the Christ Myth, so long as nobody asks for evidence or reason to assent to your speculation, which is quite suspect on other grounds, namely its confusion in how even Hellenistic Jews, let alone those in Palestine, viewed the pagan myths. Christianity is, in fact, unique, though not in any elevated sense, but that's a topic for another time.

[Aractus]

Fuck, really?

Ok, we're talking 1st to 4th century if we're describing the early spread of Christianity, right? Just a few extant Greco-Roman Mysteries at the time include:

The Cult of Attis
The Cult of Cybele
The Mysteries of Isis
The Dionysian Mysteries
The Eleusinian Mysteries
The Mithraic Mysteries
The Cult of Sabazios
The Samothracean Mysteries

That doesn't sound like very many Redbeard. But anyway that list is meaningless on its own unless you also provide me data that shows from the 4th to 1st centuries BC there was significantly less messianic sects.

When I say "hard evidence" I mean something other than what was written about him. You telling me that scholars say hard evidence exists is next to meaningless. What evidence?

What makes you qualified to decide what "hard evidence" means as opposed to actual serious historians like Ehrman?

When a historian says there is hard evidence, and he is qualified to make such a statement; then I'm inclined to believe there is hard evidence. Just like I believe Finkelstein in matters pertaining to ancient Palestine. I don't go and look for the crackpots at the extremes and then go and side with them when they claim that the evidence that the serious respected historians have is rubbish. If that's your argument then it's meaningless. If your argument really is that you think that the evidence that serious historians are interested in iss meaningless then perhaps tell me where I might find the hard evidence for the existence of Ned Kelly? Yes, OK they found his remains a few years ago and reburied them a couple of years ago, and they have a bust of him. Everything else is a written record. So that's just two pieces of what you would claim is "hard evidence" - and he only died 130 years ago. Perhaps you could tell me please what "hard evidence" we have that Shakespeare existed? What "hard evidence" do we have that Newton existed?

You aren't a qualified historian, and you aren't qualified to provide an answer for that. I'm not qualified either - all I'm qualified to do is quote the experts that are; and as I've shown you, they say there is hard evidence.

[Aractus]

The point is that there is quite a bit written, and enough to establish reasonable certainty that a historical Jesus was - as all of the earliest writings related to Christianity, both religious and secular, attest - at the head and center of a budding theology. The mythicist interpretation is only equally as likely if you want to believe that there is a special criteria for reading ancient Christian writings and a separate criteria for reading everything else, rather than understanding the genre a particular work assumes and analysing it as the author intended it to be read, per his explicit words or the subtle clues experts are trained to detect. The original apostles, per Paul and the early church fathers, believed that Jesus was a human being who died on a cross. Why? (I hear a choir of mythicist morons insisting that the apostle Paul was a fictional creation too). Even the groups that denied Jesus was flesh and blood didn't dispute his human appearance. The problem with mythicism, apart from its dubious ad hoc methodology which is inherently biased against all texts affirming Jesus' historicity (including Josephus and Tacitus, who remain two extremely powerful witnesses after Paul and Mark's Gospel) is that it has nothing substantial to offer as an alternative explanation for the birth and growth of Christianity. Contrarily, the historicists possess a number of plausible scenarios for how the faith came to take the form it did, and none of them require special pleading and outlandish speculation.

The biggest problem is that even after we show them the "hard evidence" they claim "doesn't exist" they then insist on changing the rules to suit their argument. Instead of accepting the evidence, considering it, and possibly changing their minds they're idiots who like Holocaust deniers will never change their minds even in the face of overwhelming evidence from the qualified experts. Here's a vid of Michael Shermer lamenting these quacks:

http://youtu.be/VoXX9XqdVd8

I agree with your statement completely:

Yes, you've proven that it's not difficult to explain the rise of Christianity under the Christ Myth, so long as nobody asks for evidence or reason to assent to your speculation, which is quite suspect on other grounds, namely its confusion in how even Hellenistic Jews, let alone those in Palestine,  viewed the pagan myths. Christianity is, in fact, unique, though not in any elevated sense, but that's a topic for another time.

I wish these guys would shut up about the historicity of Jesus long enough to start schooling us on the non-historicity of the Holocaust and whatever else they think about in their tinfoil hats.

No I wish they would present some EVIDENCE. Min asked me for mine I gave it, I asked for his he refused to give any. Both Min and Redbeard have refused to give any credible quotes from new testament period historians to defend their positions.

[Mudhammam]

The question for me is what was in the mind of the gospel authors? If it was a human, clearly they didn't know which human in particular as they had no frame of reference outside of gossip.

To your first question, I see the Gospel writers as attempting to paint a portrait - with the aid of embellishment - of a man whom they believed to have been divinely inspired in his words and deeds, and who clearly had a deeply felt impact on many of those he encountered, whether friend or foe. To your second, how else was information to spread in the 1st century, amongst the 90% who could neither read nor write? YouTube?

Trying to randomly find people who fit the profile is kind of irrelevant, in my opinion, because that doesn't tell us what they were really playing at. Clearly they were in the business of making shit up, that's obvious from the fantastical details they include. I think it's a fair estimate that their goal was spreading a religious agenda, but what process did they go through?

Well, you're not going to "find" anyone from the 1st century with a photo ID sitting next to their bones. Read any document from the ancient world that relates to a revered figure - or idea; you will quickly realize just how much they were, after all, writing in an era that was both VERY credulous and religious, when only half a century later the Emperor Hadrian could get away with deifying his recently deceased but still beloved servant boy Antinuos and establish a temple cult for him - not to mention the string of despots before him whom the public called gods. Embellishment was utilized from a number of possible motivations, from sincere adoration and poetic license to ambitious rivalry and profitable fraud. Given that the Gospel writers appear, and probably were, deriving their information from multiple sources, all of this could have come into play, as well as factual detail. That's what historians endeavor to extract, and pretty much all of them agree that there are indeed facts to be gleaned.

[Mudhammam]

---

The point is that there is quite a bit written, and enough to establish reasonable certainty that a historical Jesus was - as all of the earliest writings related to Christianity, both religious and secular, attest - at the head and center of a budding theology. The mythicist interpretation is only equally as likely if you want to believe that there is a special criteria for reading ancient Christian writings and a separate criteria for reading everything else, rather than understanding the genre a particular work assumes and analysing it as the author intended it to be read, per his explicit words or the subtle clues experts are trained to detect. The original apostles, per Paul and the early church fathers, believed that Jesus was a human being who died on a cross. Why? (I hear a choir of mythicist morons insisting that the apostle Paul was a fictional creation too). Even the groups that denied Jesus was flesh and blood didn't dispute his human appearance. The problem with mythicism, apart from its dubious ad hoc methodology which is inherently biased against all texts affirming Jesus' historicity (including Josephus and Tacitus, who remain two extremely powerful witnesses after Paul and Mark's Gospel) is that it has nothing substantial to offer as an alternative explanation for the birth and growth of Christianity. Contrarily, the historicists possess a number of plausible scenarios for how the faith came to take the form it did, and none of them require special pleading and outlandish speculation.

The biggest problem is that even after we show them the "hard evidence" they claim "doesn't exist" they then insist on changing the rules to suit their argument. Instead of accepting the evidence, considering it, and possibly changing their minds they're idiots who like Holocaust deniers will never change their minds even in the face of overwhelming evidence from the qualified experts. Here's a vid of Michael Shermer lamenting these quacks:

http://youtu.be/VoXX9XqdVd8

I agree with your statement completely:

Yes, you've proven that it's not difficult to explain the rise of Christianity under the Christ Myth, so long as nobody asks for evidence or reason to assent to your speculation, which is quite suspect on other grounds, namely its confusion in how even Hellenistic Jews, let alone those in Palestine,  viewed the pagan myths. Christianity is, in fact, unique, though not in any elevated sense, but that's a topic for another time.

I wish these guys would shut up about the historicity of Jesus long enough to start schooling us on the non-historicity of the Holocaust and whatever else they think about in their tinfoil hats.

No I wish they would present some EVIDENCE. Min asked me for mine I gave it, I asked for his he refused to give any. Both Min and Redbeard have refused to give any credible quotes from new testament period historians to defend their positions.

---

Well, I'm not sure I'd put any single occurrence of the ancient world on par with events from the past 70 years, when MUCH more documentation and even personal testimony remains verifiable for the latter. I also think that, as stupid as 99% of internet trolls - I mean, mythicists - sound, some do make very good points that need to be confronted. I've read and listened to a few of the most outspoken and studied mythicists; I like Carrier myself and find him very intelligent; yet, it's impossible for me to see how anyone who is being objective cannot find him wanting in the most crucial of points - writing off this or that as interpolation on quite spurious grounds, or drawing comparisons from other cults and religions that seem specious at best.

Mythicists would definitely come across as more credible if they followed Carrier's lead and studied what they profess to be so enlightened about - while yet ignoring their hero's obvious and obnoxious slant.

[Aractus]

Raising questions isn't the same as raising evidence.

Question: Is there hard evidence that Jesus existed?
Answer from historians: Yes.
Mythists response: Nu-uh.

There's simply nothing that can be done to raise that credibility. Because if they actually bothered to consider the evidence put forward by contemporary historians in the field then they wouldn't be Mythists in the first place.

Holocaust survivors don't count as reliable evidence to deniers because eyewitness testimony can be wrong (and then a Holocaust denier would give you examples of clear inaccuracies in eyewitness accounts). It's the same argument that these guys are making - because this little section here must be wrong the whole thing is unreliable, and so are the rest of the documents. It's exactly the same argument, it's no different at all.

[Pizza]

The selective hyperbolic skepticism applied to ancient history by mythicists is bizarre.