The Passion of the Christ-Deniers
by rjosephhoffmann
he recent uptick of interest in the historical Jesus is fueled partly by a new interest in a movement that was laid to rest about seventy years ago, but has received a new lease of life from a clutch of historical Jesus-deniers. The rallying point for the group is a site maintained by a blogger by the name of Neil Godfrey, an Australian university librarian who, like many others who have assumed the position, comes from a conservative Christian background.
In the broadest terms, the movement feeds and thrives on the thesis that Jesus of Nazareth never really existed. There are various permutations of that basic position: (a) That he was concocted lock, stock and cross by a second century religious movement that (also) produced the documents of New Testament; (2) He is a composite of semi-historical characters, but no one in particular; (c) He is the reworking of an assortment of ancient dying and rising god myths, a little from here, a little from there. There are sonata and fugue-like variations of these variations, but the central premise is that it is easier to explain the origin of Christianity without an historical founder than with one, and easier to explain the development of the New Testament as the work of garden variety story-makers, working out and reworking the myth of Jesus as the crowds began to come to the church door. If the gospel-writers were Hertz, Paul was Avis: he tried harder and finally won the competition to get the wobbly faith off the starting block. (The fact that Paul failed miserably even to secure his own reputation into the second century is an inconvenient bit of business for the mythicists.)
Much of their argument gets down to details, if not back of the fridge leftovers, and much of what I have had to say about the topic so far has been in clarifying these details. There will be plenty of scope to discuss the flaws and crevices in the “logic” of mythicism in my forthcoming book, though the book itself is about what we can reliably know about Jesus, not an assault on the Nichts da ist, und es gibt nichts zu wissen school.
I increasingly regard the “mythers” or “mythtics” or (more traditionally) “mythicists” as belligerent yahoos who behave like sophomores at an all-city debating contest. They are out to score (or claim to score) points against anyone suspected of what they label “historicism.” In case you are interested in what that word means when they humpty dumpty it, it means anyone who believes in or defends the proposition that Jesus was real.
I have grown to dislike the mythtics because they are fighting for a cause they don’t fully understand, based on evidence they can’t cipher for an objective they can’t reach. I know that in other contexts this might make them idealists or romantics, like Byron’s dying for Greek independence. But idealism and romanticism are usually defined in relation to objects and intentions. What are the objects and intentions of the mythicists? Why do they regard what they are doing as important? Is it out of some desire for truth—to get to the bottom of a case and see historical justice done. That would qualify as idealism. Or is it simply to make their opponents look mean-spirited and wrong by pursuing immoderate ends in the rashest way. That wouldn’t.
I regard them as hurtful because they are turning the serious question of Jesus of Nazareth’s existence into a farcical one.
Which raises the question I want to address here. Why is it so important to certain people that Jesus did not exist? Is it just the flip side of the importance of the premise that he did?
Before I get to that, however, a story.
The Roman historian Tacitus writing of the year 57 CE in his Annals (XIII.32,in about 114) discusses the trial of a certain Pomponia Graecina a Greek woman married to a Roman solider–Aulus Plautius who was decorated for his bravery in the British campaign. Pomponia had embraced what Tacitus calls a “foreign superstition” and was handed over to her husband for trial. Plautius found her innocent, together with some members of her family. Interestingly Tacitus does not directly mention that the foreign superstition was Christianity. The strong surmise that it was comes from later, third century inscriptions commemorating members of the gens Pomponia, who apparently led an austere life and like Pomponia dressed soberly (by the standards of the post-Neronian period)–”as though they were always in mourning” Tacitus says. Importantly the date of her trial and her (presumably earlier) conversion corresponds to the average dates for Paul’s missionary activities and his earliest letters but predates any involvement in Rome, which is thought to date from the late fifties or early sixties of the first century. Paul knows churches like the one Pomponia may have founded, but so did lots of missionaries preaching many different “gospels” during the same hyperactive period. The trial of Pomponia simply illustrates the heterodox and competitive environment in which these stories were fashioned, and Tacitus bears indirect and inadvertent testimony to it.
Seven years later, in Tacitus’s discussion of the Neronian persecution (Annals, XV, 44), the same xenophobia sets in: for a major fire probably caused by accident Nero blames a foreign sect “hated for their abominations, called Christians,” and then continues: ”Christus, from whom their name is derived was executed at the hands of the procurator Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius.” He goes on, “Checked for a moment, this pernicious superstition again broke out not only in Judaea, the source of the evil, but even in Rome, that cesspool of everything that is sordid and degrading.” He then describes the process by which people accused of belonging to the sect could be tried, a process for which there is strong evidence in the famous letter of Pliny the younger to Trajan some fifty years after Nero’s rule. The fire was real enough: four of the fourteen districts of Rome escaped the fire; three districts were completely destroyed and the other seven suffered serious damage. Christian forgers later tried to blame Nero; and in the second century Dio Cassius accused Nero of playing his lyre during a production of his favourite epic, the “Sack of Ilium” while the city was burning. It is Tacitus’s sober report that Nero was not in the city at the time and that when he saw the damage, paid for the relief efforts out of his own pocket (Annals, XV.39).
Mythtics spend a lot of time denying or countering evidence while always demanding more of it. Thus for example, they might want to say the following about the above passage: (1) It only goes to show that there was a movement called Christianity; (2) the fact there is a third century cult named after someone named Pomponia does not prove it was the same Pomponia; it might have been anyone; (3) Tacitus could have got the very basic information about the historical “location” of Jesus in relation to Tiberius and Pilate from Christians who had come to believe this (though probably not from literary sources); but why bother since (4) how do we know Tacitus really wrote this? Weren’t the Christians master forgers and interpolators? Didn’t they mess with purported references to Jesus in the work of Flavius Josephus? The best proof of which is that they made Jesus up.
Most historians would regard this treatment of sources not just absurd and flatfooted but dizzying in its circularity, especially as Tacitus died only a few years after the younger Pliny’s famous letter, written ca. 111 (Pliny jr. was a great admirer of Tacitus) and was born, according to the best evidence, in a year when Paul would have been missionizing the provinces and prior to any “first edition” of the gospels. That makes his scant but direct reference to Jesus significant, not least because it is entirely lacking a theological motif and seems conservatively Roman in its denunciation of the Christ cult as a “superstition” (lit. a new religion). His distaste for the actions of the faith will be echoed by Celsus, by Porphyry and even after the legitimation of Christianity under the final pagan emperor Julian.
Take a breath: and note well. No one is suggesting that a reference in Tacitus written at the end of 116 CE about events of 64 CE can be considered a clincher for the historical Jesus. However neither Tacitus nor Suetonius later, nor Celsus, nor Josephus if he mentions Jesus at all, raise the slightest doubt that Jesus was a flesh and blood character from their recent past. I repeat, their recent past. We have often established the irrefragable historicity of persons in the ancient world with much less to go on. In fact, the circumstantial proof for details of Tacitus’s own life are pretty scant; and they come from Pliny, who was soft on Christianity. What might we want to conclude from that? Please don’t write in with suggestions: it’s called irony.
The reason that the mythtics are determined to hide the evidence under their bed and then ask where it is seems to come from the darker regions of intentionality. So let me be direct.
It is important to them that Jesus should not exist. It is important to them in a way that the existence of Proclus or Anacreon or Alcibiades or even Socrates is not. The mythtics don’t want history, they want a victory. They don’t want serious discussion or best interpretation, they want to score points. Almost every discussion I have seen on their sites or mythtic-friendly atheist sites resembles nothing so much as the citizens of Lilliput trying to pin down a sleeping Gulliver with sewing thread, with lots of back-slapping and cheer-leading points presumed to be won against mainstream scholars with more…conservative ideas.
They don’t want there to be a historical Jesus because they think that if there wasn’t they have somehow zapped the “foul superstition” Tacitus describes right out of existence. No historical Jesus no son of God, no resurrection, no salvation, no final judgement, no heaven above or hell below. Christianity (do you hear me brothers and sisters?) is fucked. It is a lie built on a myth, sustained by dishonesty and fed to the ignorant. The historical Jesus is the key to exposing the falsehood of it all–including the deceit of the grandly glorious Roman Catholic church and the backwater Pentecostal assemblies who have made their reputation by poisoning minds and ruining lives with their fakery and dogma. The stakes are high, so the tactics have to be mean. This Jesus (myth) must die.
The agenda for the mythtics is as theological–or maybe better, evangelical– as the agenda of the Christian apologists: it’s a winner- take- all game based on the idea that Christianity is vulnerable on this score in roughly the same way that most atheists believe the existence of God is buggered by the classic problems of theodicy.
I anticipated the confusion of ends and means in a couple of essays in the collection Sources of the Jesus Tradition. The essays were primarily intended as orientation rather than scholarship, but I have reason to think that the mythtics didn’t give them much time. To make it easy, an early and less refined version of the lead essay, “Of Love and Chairs,” is available at The Bible and Interpretation. Ideally, it should give rise to discussion–but I am pessimistic that it will. It offers very little: it makes the pretty obvious point that the existence of God and the existence of Jesus are two different things unless (a) you believe Jesus is God or (b) you believe that a Jesus who did not exist cannot have been God, which might also have some impact on some ideas of God as well.
A serious discussion of the historicity of Jesus does not arise from either of those beliefs. The existence of Jesus is not a theological problem. It should not be motivated by events in our own religious biographies and experiences. It is not a case in metaphysics. It is an historical question that should be free of theological ends and metaphysical implications. Otherwise, it cannot be answered.
Excellent, as ever Joe. And looking forward to the book.
Hi Mr. Hoffman, you wrote:
“Which raises the question I want to address here. Why is it so important to certain people that Jesus did not exist?”
Because the human race has been duped into atrocities from the beginning that changed the course of history for the worst–this will continue with an HJ. Because some of us aren’t superstitious and know that we have been held back as thinking, questioning, and reasoning beings because others aren’t using their fullest capabilities. We could be so much more as a human community, not cognitively stulted and stifled with no spark for looking outside the box. Because people who think for themselves rather than just suck up culture mindlessly know that faith is blind, wishful thinking.
Because some of us are concerned about the human race’s cognitive development, well-being, and progress. We’ve lost too many minds that could have been fine instead of superstitious.
Clarice, I understand your concern. However, I don’t think ridding the world of a historical Jesus will make the problem of atrocities completely disappear. It’s not religious communities like the Christian church which have the exclusive patent on crimes against humanity. Even if it can be proven that there is no historical Jesus and that there never was a historical Jesus, that wouldn’t prevent atrocities, period. It may have prevented many crimes against humanity and may have prevented the loss of life and have fostered scientific progress. But even if there was never an historical Jesus, there will always be atrocities. There will always be people like Joseph Stalin. There will always be Stalinists who will commit crimes against humanity regardless of whether a historical Jesus existed or not. Proving that Jesus never lived wouldn’t stop such people from murdering others.
True, but the problem of atrocities would be so much less.
As an infant species, Clarice, it may be too early to be judgemental? The imagery of our forefathers isn’t bullshit, any more than painting is. It’s a continuum that depends on solidarity.
Remember that our foreparents were pre-science. They did the best they could with what they had. Different worldview now but some haven’t caught onto it.
Hello Clarisse,
I think a very minimal HJ existed and I am not superstitious, nor a Christian.
Your rant seems to be targeted towards Christianity rather than HJ. If it is so, I approve most of it. But what does that have to do with a dead poor Galilean?
I also think the multitude of competing & vastly different no-HJ theories for the beginning of Christianity are a subject of ridicule. Many of them have little so-called evidence for support, plenty of weird thinking, quasi cultist beliefs & dogma, a lot of far-fetched notions, many hidden problems, plain sillyness. Most are without any reconstruction (with approximate dating of early Christian texts, sequence, explanation for any deemed interpolations, etc.) and way too far outside the box. They look as agenda driven parodies of historical studies.
Some of the adherants of these no-HJ schemes are quasi-sectarian, almost religious in their belief and spend a huge amount of time arguing & fighting each other on the internet. Mythicism, in its many facets, has become a religion of many sects, where almost anything goes.
Cordially, Bernard
That is an impressive agenda, but unfortunately has nothing to do with the historical question: I doubt that in 2013 the discovery that Jesus was made up will rectify the errors that his propagation hath wrought. But, you do prove my point about the agenda.
True story: I once asked a creationist why he was so adamant on denying the last few centuries of science. The answer was, essentially, because were creationism true, it would incontrovertably prove Christianity true.
James McGrath’s observation that mythicists are the creationists of history is very, very apt. My agenda requires X to be true, therefore X is true.
Reality tends to be complicated, nuance-ridden, and full of inconvenient detail. Whatever your particular prejudice, reality almost never supports it unambiguously, and no amount of wishful thinking can make it do so.
Pseudonym, But what is the agenda? You operate under the assumption that there is an agenda, say, for example, to undermine Christianity. Yet, how is the belief that Christianity was founded by a deluded would-be messiah on a suicide mission and his delusional cult followers any less damaging? As I have said, if it were true that early Christians believed in a celestial intercessor that revealed himself to them in very personal ways, how is that so different than the belief of modern Christians? I submit that it is the same. The agenda is not to undermine Christianity. The agenda, for me, is to excavate the origins of this extraordinary religion and belief system. Holding onto the HJ thesis is limiting in that regard.
Frankly, I think a historical Jesus is far more devastating to Christianity than a mythical one.
Yes Ken,
That’s what I think also.
At first (in Paul’s generation), that HJ was known as someone of little historical importance, who had the misfortune to be crucified as king of the Jews, due to a set of (historical & religious) circumstances. No wonder Paul and the author of Hebrews concentrated only on a (human & earthly) Christ crucified (and believed resurrected), and nothing else about the man Jesus.
Then came the gospels, canonical and others, plus all kind of associated stories, some about the enfancy. They were full of myths and contracdictions, but stuck to that HJ.
No wonder that, with exceptions, most “fathers” of the Church and Christian Gnostics avoided most or all of this mythical HJ in favour to a pure religion based on Platonism and Logos. More so when these Christian writers were ridiculing myths about the pagan gods.
Cordially, Bernard
How so?
Clarice, because an historical Jesus is going to be a normal human being who couldn’t turn water into wine, and for most Christian churches today, Jesus still comes with a bit of baggage like the epithet ‘divine’ for example. To demonstrate that Jesus was a normal human being is potentially devastating to [conservative] Christianity. Mythicists on the other hand, are not a threat to their beliefs. They merely dismiss/ignore them as neither has evidence to disprove the other.
Steph is exactly right about why I said that. A real, human Jesus has to be a real human, and no real human can help but be a disappointment.
If we could somehow, hypothetically see videotape of the real Jesus walking and talking (provided by aliens or a time machine or whatever other device would serve the hypothesis). I think a lot of people would be crushed. He couldn’t possibly live up to expectations, and I think that might even be true of a lot of rationalists who would not expect to see anything supernatural or miraculous. It seems to me that they still tend to idealize him.
I think there are assumptions, almost unconscious assumptions a lot of HJ scholars make about Jesus which I’m not sure are warranted.
For example. they generally assume that Jesus was self-possessed. That he had a plan and knew what he was doing. That he had consistent and specific goals or intentions and that his actions reflected a coherent agenda, even if he may not have anticipated that agenda not working. Can we say that for sure, though? Do we know that Jesus always had a plan, or an agenda,
or that he wasn’t just rolling with external events or maybe suggestions from others?
I also think they usually assume that Jesus was incorruptible or that there couldn’t have been a valid reason his followers turned on him. Maybe Jesus started letting things go to his head. Started going Hollywood. Started liking the parties with the rich guys and loose women, Started getting a little fancy with the wardrobe maybe. Both Mark and John say that Judas was unhappy with Jesus for spending money on ointment instead of the poor. Maybe Judas was right.
No real Jesus could be ideal. Personally I think seeing any real Jesus would be necessarily fascinating, no matter what he was like. The most ironic thing about him, in my opinion, was that the poor guy had no idea who he was.
If the typical mythicist is someone like Godfrey, then you’re not being too harsh. And I agree wholeheartedly with your last paragraph.
Dr. Hoffmann,
I am looking forward to your book. I am especially looking forward to your discussion of myth and legend. I was thinking about the problem of “Social Memory” and story-telling in the gospels. I am curious about something: is propaganda a form of social memory? I got to thinking of the postmortem appearance stories of Jesus in the gospels and wondered if they can be considered propaganda. I recall seeing Maurice Casey discuss Richard Burridge’s fascinating book on gospel genre and I wondered if ‘bios’ could be considered propaganda or if propaganda is a subgenre of ‘bios’. Even if miracle stories like the postmortem stories of the risen Jesus aren’t legends or somewhat legendary, then they could qualify as propaganda.
Your post is excellent. The problem with mythicism is that it has become the Angry Apostate’s weapon against the Christian Church. I, too, went through a Angry Apostate phase in my life but I never could give up the historical Jesus. Jesus always seemed way too plausible as a historical figure to me and I couldn’t, for the life of me, imagine how anonymous groups managed to merge together, for what unkown reasons to craft a historical Jesus from preexisting myths. I have always believed that there was a historical Jesus for the sole reason of parsimony. A historical Jesus explained the most data with the fewest assumptions and unanswered questions.
Dr. Matthews, you may find the post: Debunkikng Christianity – A viable solution to the “Jesus {Puzzle” to e of interest. Note the LINK and the eight comment.
Correction: Debunking Cristianity -
Mr. Hoffmann,
I’ve wondered for a long time why it is so important to certain people that Jesus did exist?
Sorry about misspelling your name above
As our agent in the Middle Kingdom, is there a parallel existence conundrum around Confucius, that might that inform us?
Class project: Discuss the historicity of Confucius and Christ as humanist philosophers.
I come from a background of being a devout Roman Catholic, to deciding that the evidence suggests that Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t God, but was a real, historical human being, to being a “mythicist”. The reason? The best explanation of the available evidence. I don’t have a “need” for Jesus to be a mythical figure – it is the evaluation of ALL of the evidence (not just bits and pieces picked up from various writings) that convinces me that Jesus of Nazareth did not exist.
A sober approach to the Pauline Epistles sets out a Christ Jesus who is not seen as having lived on earth in the recent past, but one who seems to fulfil his soteriological role in the heavens. The gospels in my view are best explained as a developing literary construction of a figure discovered by re-reading and re-interpreting scripture. None of this would prevent there being “Christians” in Rome in the 50s and 60s CE – it merely means that we may have to redefine the meaning of the term “Christian”, just as Theophilus of Antioch gives a different definition of the term to that of a “follower of Christ”.
There is nothing wide-eyed and raving in my approach to the subject, even if I am an amateur. I am working on developing my skills in NT Greek and other elements of the subject simply with the view of putting myself in a better position for deepening my appreciation of the evidence. I am always open to rational argument putting the other point of view (something you have never brought to the arena as far as I am aware, Mr. Hoffman). I am always prepared to listen to other arguments, and give them due consideration. So far, none have come close to explaining more of the problems with the traditional construct of Christian beginnings tham Jesus Mythicism.
Jim Farrell
That’s quite an achievement, greater than that of any other person I know. So now that you have “evaluat[ed] ALL of the evidence” you have found the best explanation to be that Jesus did not exist. So what is the best explanation of the myth?
I’d say superstitious pre-science, as above. Faith without reason. What’s the best explanation for an HJ?
As you will see, I was quoting Jim and you were not addressed Clarice. In any case you have not provided an explanation for a the stories about Jesus being written. You haven’t said anything except give your brief definition of a ‘myth’. Explanations need to engage with the evidence and argument and are demonstrated in books, not in short blog comments. Try Casey’s Jesus of Nazareth perhaps published in 2010. Try Geza Vermes and EP Sanders on the historical Jesus. Try Justin Meggitt and James Crossley on issues to do with Jesus.
The best explanation is that given by “paul” himself. In re-reading the scriptures, he re-interpreted the “Messiah” or “Christ” figure to be, not a human king of the Jews, but a spiritual “redeemer” of all of humanity.
It is striking that nowhere does “paul” feel the need to explain that Jesus flesh, if he was “born of woman” was different from the rest of “flesh”, or humanity, “flesh that “Paul” notes in many places is weak and sinful. How could God send his “Son” in actual flesh if that flesh is weak and sinful? “Paul” never tries to tell us what was diofferent about Jesus’ flesh that made it not “sinful”. However, at Romans 8:3, he does tell us that “Gos sent His Son in the LIKENESS of sinful flesh” (emphasis mine), which clearly suggests that “Paul” didn’t see Jesus as being ana ctual human being at all.
Jim – If I say you are like the man who tells stories this doesn’t suggest you aren’t a man but it doesn’t say whether or not you tell stories as well. So Paul believed God sent Jesus like a sinful man but Jesus didn’t sin, and he sent him in order to condemn sins of men through his own son who was a man. You are thinking in twenty first century terms. You are in the wrong culture (and language). It is not at all ‘striking’ that Paul wouldn’t feel it necessary to describe Jesus’ life, little about which he would have known in any case. Without post enlightenment mythicists denying his existence, there was no need for Paul to write ‘yes he did’. His life wasn’t contested, it was assumed. He was not writing about the life of Jesus. He was writing letters to communities concerning the future, not past, of the church, relating to the members’ of those churches behaviour and conduct. Paul does not give ‘the best explanation’ for mythicism. You give the most common mythicist reason for mythicism being that Paul doesn’t talk about Jesus in his letters. He never knew him Jim. Perhaps the church members did and they shared their stories with Paul but Paul taught them how to behave.
To Jim,
The word “likeness” (Greek homoiōma) is used in Ro 8:3 & Php 2:7, likely to indicate that “sinful flesh” or “man” is not the normal condition for the Son, which is “heavenly”. And “in the likeness of sinful flesh” or “in the likeness of men” is meant to imply just that.
Ancient writers used “likeness” when a god becomes human on earth, either in a docetist (instant) way or **through childbirth**.
Here are two examples for god to “born of woman” incarnation:
a) Herodotus, ‘Histories’, Book 7, Chapter 56 “When Xerxes had passed over to Europe, he viewed his army crossing under the lash. Seven days and seven nights it was in crossing, with no pause. It is said that when Xerxes had now crossed the Hellespont, a man of the Hellespont cried, “O Zeus, why have you taken the **likeness** of a Persian man and changed your name to Xerxes, leading the whole world with you to remove Hellas from its place? You could have done that without these means.”
Certainly Herodotus and any other person would know Xerxes was a real man. Furthermore, the comment is not prompted by the nature of the Persian king’s body, but because of the enormous size of his army. Anyway, it shows that “likeness” can be used for an incarnation from a god to a “born of woman” human being.
b) ‘The Ascension of Isaiah’ 4:2 “After it is consummated, Beliar the great ruler, the king of this world, will descend, who hath ruled it since it came into being; yea, he will descent from his firmament in the **likeness** of a man, a lawless king, the slayer of his mother: …”
This relates to emperor Nero, who had his mother Agrippina killed. Once again, the author used “likeness” about the alleged incarnation of a heavenly deity to a real man.
Cordially, Bernard
On the contrary Bernard. Ancient writers used homoios in a number of ways. Meaning ‘like’, and ‘resembling’ synonymous with the Latin ‘similis’ as is clear in the entry of Liddell and Scott linked to below. Birds of a feather flock together, like minds agree, always the same, that in which a person is like another. All these use homoios. For accurate references see Liddell and Scott:
http://nlp.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?greek.display=GreekXLit&arabic.display=UnicodeC&language=trans&navbar.display=show&doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0058:entry%3Do(/moios
In particular the central point is that Paul thought Jesus was in the likeness of sinful flesh because he was not sinful not because he was not in the flesh. This should be especially clear in the comments immediately following on Romans 8.3. Bernard, you have done just what these mythicists love to do and taken two passages, including Philippians 2.7, out of their context in Paul and interpreted them against a pagan background instead. This demonstrates no understanding of culture or history (or historical literary interpretation) at all.
“A sober approach to the Pauline Epistles sets out a Christ Jesus who is not seen as having lived on earth in the recent past”
Does this “sober” reading include reading the bits where Paul says Jesus had a “human nature”, says he was “born of woman”, says he was descended from the human King David and mentions chatting to his brother in Jerusalem? Let me guess – you wave all that away via something like Earl “self-published polemicist” Doherty’s ad hoc contrivances. Very “sober”. “Sober” as a newt.
Regarding his brother, need I quote RJH to demonstrate that it is not a foregone conclusion that Gal 1:19 is referring to a sibling of Jesus of Nazareth? I could, of course.
See above response to Steph. The “sober “reading of “paul” includes those elements, as well as the elements where “paul” says specifically that “God sent His Son in the LIKENESS of sinful flesh”, not as actual flesh (Romans 8:3, emphasis mine).
So much more sober than your approach, it would seem.
And Steph’s reply skewers that little ad hoc work around nicely. This “sober” reading of yours has all the sobriety of a drunk rolling in a gutter.
Steph, obviously the stories about Jesus were written just as the stories about other god-men at the time and BCE. No mystery there. Think.
Oh. So the Roman emperors for example, didn’t exist!
Where did that come from? Of course they did.
Oh. So now you’re implying of ‘of course’ Jesus existed. As you demand, ‘think’, Clarice.
Hi Joe. After reading your blog the only thing that I can offer to the discussion is that you have every right to be a Christ denier denier.
The subject under examination is a first century Jewish Jesus. “Christ”, (anointed one – by God) is the result of storytelling around a historical figure.
I only see ancient evidence of a “Jesus Christ.” Where is your evidence for this plain old Jesus?
From the beginning to the end of the story in Mark, the earliest gospel, there is evidence which, supported with arguments, develop a very Jewish, human Jesus. These arguments are laid out in books. Such books have been published by Casey, Vermes, Sanders and Allison. Mythicists dismiss them all because they deny everything complicated. The story in Mark, the earliest gospel, has John the Baptist baptise Jesus. Later redaction in later gospels gradually subordinates John because a godman wouldn’t be subordinate to anyone. A very humanlike struggle is apparent in Jesus in Mark’s Garden of Gethsemane, which decreases through the gospels until by John the whole story is completely written out. The cry on the cross is one of despair in Mark. A godman story wouldn’t be made up with despairing godmen. Later redaction in later gospels writes this out and Jesus is more than willing to give up his spirit, because tradition was considering his divinity. The term Christ occurs only 7 times in the Gospel of Mark. This is the oldest of the Gospels. Most of the seven occurrences are obviously secondary. The picture of Jesus which emerges from considering the oldest traditions in Mark is clearly that of a human being. Furthermore, the arguments are corroborated by external evidence when it is developed into a whole coherent argument. The mythicist head bursts as he expects all answers to be sufficiently supplied in soundbites and complains when he’s told he has to consult books with arguments of cumulative weight which he declares must be wrong as he fires forth predictable and rapid responses from the sure-fire atheist cookbook.
Facts, Geoff? What facts? You have presented part of the later accretion (in English) from the story in Mark. This is redaction which has been demonstrated in the secondary literature such as that which I directed you to. They present argument supported by manuscript and other evidence to explain the process of storytelling attached to a historical figure. The story which emerges from Mark beneath the later redaction, is of a human being and this is more clearly available in Mark than the later gospels which have been developed further.
You are in the wrong culture like all mythtics. In first century Judaism a heavenly voice saying to Jesus ‘You are my beloved son in you I am well pleased’ means that Jesus is having a vision in which God is telling him that he had an important task for him to do. All faithful Jews were supposed to be sons of God which is the same thing as Christians saying today ‘children of God’. As a first century Jew, this would be what the historical Jesus thought. He was not a deluded Messiah either as this term was not yet in normal usage. Of course the development of Christology is an important aspect of scholarship which you show no sign of having read. I operate on the process of method. I have presented an outline, not an argument. There is no tautology. Your description of it as tautological also shows that you are not familiar with the main secondary literature. Your assumption that the original Jesus did not exist and is presented from nowhere as Jesus Christ, demonstrates a twenty first century mentality, not a first century cultural process of tradition retelling. The Jesus ‘project’ whatever that is, is not ‘suspect’. However your comprehension skills and demands are suspect.
Next they’ll be telling us that Haile Selassie didn’t exist. It seems to my poor brain to be simpler to posit a historical figure who becomes the centre of myth and legend. Not that it matters a hill of beans; proving there never was a Yeshue isn’t going to change human nature.
The historicity of a Jewish male in the first century, does not prove the existence of any god. And in this particular case it would demonstrate that a god-man is not historical reality but mythmaking. It is a question of history, not theology. Your ‘poor brain’, I suspect has found it ‘simpler’ to deny everything and say ‘myth’.
That is hardly what I wrote. I would think it clear that just as Haile Selassie was a real person around whom many myths and legends grew up, so was Yeshue bar Yussef. I do not “deny everything and say myth” at all!. Perhaps you should reread my original post.
This is to sailor, not steph. But couldn’t you also say, just as Robin Hood or King Arthur are characters of questionable historicity around whom legends and myths have accreted, so is Jesus?
To Geoff: You could certainly say that. I don’t know anything about Robin Hood. Arthur on the other hand is possibly based on a real figure – the ‘comes britanniae’, a war leader in late and post-roman times in Britain. But there wasn’t anything written for centuries and the wildest of legends had plenty of ime to accumulate.
In the case of Yeshue we have documents, based possibly on slightly earlier documents or verbal history or both, circulating within a few decades of Yeshue’s alleged death. I think it likely, that as in the case of Haile Selassie, the stories all gelled around an actual figure rather than that a number of different sources of complete myth suddenly arose for no good reason. Could be I’m wrong, but the historical figure just seems more plausible to me. And there’s always the stories about that bald-faced liar Saul of Tarsus actually meeting people that had known Yeshue…….
In any case historical figure or not, it’s not going to change human nature.
Is there really one category into which both G A Wells and Neil Godfrey can meaningfully be placed? If we’re going to call one of them a mythicist, shouldn’t we use a different description for the other?
As far as Godfrey is concerned, and many other of the usual suspects at Vridar and FTB, you’ve certainly nailed them, but so what? Why mass your artillery against fleas? Unless perhaps it’s just because there are so many of them. But really, how much is there to say, in the last analysis, about such simplemindedness? (I’m reminded somewhat of my brief time commenting on those sites, when I asked people like Carrier and Myers why they bothered to debate fundamentalists. Then tended to ignore me when I asked this. You’ve diagnosed some of their reasons for going after the fundies above, and in other recent posts. You and others, describing the phenomenon of “fundamentalist atheism.” Only very recently did another motive for Carrier and Myers to debate the fundies occur to me: they get paid to do so. Not much, probably, but everybody has to make ends meet: http://thewrongmonkey.blogspot.com/2013/01/sequel-to-my-blog-post-dont-play-their.html )
Back to the mythicist label: its application really has been quite imprecise. I wouldn’t mourn the term if it went away altogether. Sometimes it’s used to describe anyone and everyone who is less than absolutely certain of Jesus’
historical existence. Which of course includes you.
On post-Easter Jesus traditions:
Our sole sufficient evicence for knowledge of the Jesus of history is the original and originating faith and witness of the apostles. This apostolic witness began with the event of the key disciples returning to Jerusalem soon after the execution (within weeks) purposing to again take up the sayings of their revered Master. This marked the beginning of post-Easter Jesus traditions with the Jerusalem Jesus Movement from which we obtained the “Sermon on the Mount” (Matt: 5:3-7:27) our most cecrtain source containing apostolic witness to Jesus. This is not found in the writings of the NT, the letters of Paul, the Gospels, as well as the later writings of the NT. The reason: soon after the beginning of the Jesus Movement, a second movement began with Jerusalem Hellenist grooup who took up the notion that the significance of the Jersus event was the salvific efects of the death and resurrection. Soon we find Paul, first as persecutor, then joining this group from which he obtained his Christ myth kerygma, takikng it to the Gentile world to become Gentile Christianity, meeting with ready success. As winners in the struggle for dominance over against the Jesus Movement, they were able to declare it heresy to wipe it from the pages of history. The writings of the NT were written by followers of Paul,not followers of Jesus. As Eric Zuesse’s Christ’s Ventriloquist said it: The religion of the NT had nothing to do with the person Jesus of history.
“It offers very little: it makes the pretty obvious point that the existence of God and the existence of Jesus are two different things unless (a) you believe Jesus is God or (b) you believe that a Jesus who did not exist cannot have been God, which might also have some impact on some ideas of God as well.”
I agree with this statement. One of the issues I see though is that there is confusion regarding the “agenda” of so-called mythicists. You repeat it here and it is implicit in the title of your post. Mythicists argue that early Christians believed in a celestial Jesus, not a non-existent Jesus. Jesus to the early Christians, like modern Christians, lived in heaven. No different than modern Christians today. I would argue that ancient Christians believed that Jesus had been crucified on earth in some mythical past. I would argue further that to the vast majority of Christians, ancient Jerusalem of the Gospels is also a mythical past. The belief-systems are the same and the question is not “Did Jesus Exist” which is irrelevant. The question, here, is Did the earliest Christians believe in a martyr figure of the recent past? Answering that with an uncritical yes is to put blinders on to the other possibilities.
What is the HJ (presumably Historical Jesus) thesis and why is it limiting, since the postulation of human existence is a pretty usual thing. I have never met you and know you only from your cyberscribble, but I have no reason to doubt your existence. Perhaps you mean the theories imposed on that existence by theology? But That is a different matter and not at all what is under discussion here. Even in debate one begins with defining the terms to be discussed; and I find no such willingness among mythtics to do that– just demands for evidence (also undefined) that will satisfy their false assumption that we possess the kind of bedrock empirical material that would prove the case of the historical existence of a figure for whom such material would be available. I know that sentence will take some reading, so read it twice. I have found that reading things comprehensively is a general weakness among mythicists, as well as among hardcore believers. You do “get,” do you not, that an argument for an historical Jesus eo ipso excludes Christology, but cannot exclude the way in which Christology developed?
I have read that sentence several times and I still cannot make heads or tails of it. If such material would be available, why is it false to assume that we possess it?
@Vinny – hahahahahaha.
Steph,
Why is that funny?
Availability of empirical evidence. Bedrock – mythicists.
I have found writing for comprehension is a comprehensive failing of yours.
Mark. A great deal of time has passed during which much conversation ensued. After all this time, today the irony of your innocently inadvertent confession expressing your comprehension deficit, is striking – but unsurprising…
I notice Clarice O’Callaghan asked doctor Hoffmann:
“I’ve wondered for a long time why it is so important to certain people that Jesus did exist?”
First, I think that was partly answered on this blog by Matthew:
“A historical Jesus explained the most data with the fewest assumptions and unanswered questions.”
And also, on Clarice’s own forum (JesusMysteries) by GR Gaudreau:
“I’ve been thinking a lot about Occam’s Razor lately, and when I see all of
the complicated twists and turns some have to take to explain why Jesus
didn’t exist, it just sours the cream for me.”
As a non-believer, non-religious, non-Christian, yes, I am ashamed that some other atheists goes into all kinds of ridicule non-sense in order to sketch theories with no HJ in order to explain the beginning of Christianity.
But I think these “absolutely_no_HJ” theories are largely motivated, not only by anti-Christian feelings, but also by repulsion of most HJ descriptions. Even if some of them came from non-believer like Ehrman, they are, even expurgated (but with their charismatic teacher outlook and a HJ presented as the real founder of a sect/movement/religion) way too close of a Christian HJ (and false, according to my studies). They are inviting non-believers to accept non-HJ schemes as the only option away from these “loaded” HJs.
I feel bad that my option of an ultra minimalist HJ, NOT a teacher, NOT charismatic, NOT the creator of Christian beliefs, is not considered, sometimes not even known. However, it does explain the lack of external evidence, many silences from Paul and the so-called messianic secret in gMark, among many others things. But because of the immediate context, and using the OT as authority, and claiming revelations from above, and looking at Philo’s works, it was easy, from a poor uneducated Galilean executed and mocked/charged as “king of the Jew”, to start a new sect. Then the myths started to come …
Cordially, Bernard
“CARR” ….. you’re in the wrong culture like all mythtics. Ideas evolve, so does language, language is translated… possible exception: mythtics’ ideas and language, which begin and remain rooted firmly in the twenty-first century along with the extent of their views of cultural environment.
The question of the historical Jesus is strictly important to a fundamentalist atheist. For those who would examine the structural context behind the message, it becomes important what the original function of that message resonates. In the words of Jesus we find things that are expressed at the very core of who we are as human beings. Making water into wine at the request of his mother, creating food for people to eat, raising friends from the dead. We can debate ad nauseam the historical accounts of Jesus, but in the end the real question is what you do with the claims of Jesus. Islam and Judaism share the same question. Judaism wants you to embrace ethical living and eschatology of a future Messiah. Islam wants you to embrace the teachings of Mohammed, and the future Mahdi. At the core of what Jesus wants us to embrace are essential love for God, and a nonsectarian love for others. Whether you passionately deny Christ, you cannot deny the passion of his message. You can only deny its origin.