Vast majority?  I believe that is a gross overstatement. I would say the currently historian community is split - mainly because of misinformation and bias.  50% would say that Christ did definitely live,the other 50% is split in the manner that 25% feel that Christ may have lived, it's hard to say (and in history it's okay to assume the existence of somebody until evidence presents itself that is contradictory), and the other 25% (which I am a part of) feel that the evidence is contradictory for a historical person to have lived, and in fact, found a way in which Christianity could have started without having a historical Christ - and more potent is the evidence for that theory then the theory in which is suggested he lived.

 The problem is, most historians have not come across or have religious bias to this theory and still feel the origional contention (i.e. that Christ existed) is still more probable.  I would state that this fiasco is similar to the idea of Caesar crossing the rubicon.

Most historians are uncertain whether Caesar did cross the rubicon, as Caesar never mentions it directly - but the few scholars who directly researched the claims made by those who say he didn't - find their claims unworthy and instead have found through studying extra-Caesar material, that Caesar in fact would have HAD to cross the Rubicon.  (For example, there was no other bridge to cross an army over other then the Rubicon, the fact that one day he was on one side of the Rubicon and a fgew days later he was on the other -merely 10 miles away from the Rubicon crossing). 

 This is laid out very elequently in Carrier's publication Here:  http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/rubicon.html

PS. Still going to help me out with my resources?

You said, "They burry or destroy the texts..."

Do you have evidence to support this that I can look into?

thanks

What are the earliest writings that we have attesting to the life of Alexander? 

Aren't the early followers of Jesus Christ evidence that Jesus existed?  

So we can believe in someone who has little material written about them and the manuscripts we do have are centuries after their life but if there are sources that date only decades after the life of someone that happen to have some conflicts regarding the persons actions, not his existence, then we call into question if he lived?

 I'll post a reply to the rest of your material later.

peace.

Thanks for posting this Rook.  I was pretty unclear on all of what the Jesus Mythicist's believed.  You're really starting to get me more interested in this stuff.  I"ll be reading more.  Oh, and definately interested in your book

How do you reconcile using Michael Grant's material to support your belief Jesus was a myth when Michael Grant said in his book Jesus: An Historian’s Review of the Gospels.

“But above all, if we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus’ existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned”

Even Bart Ehrman, whom you also cite, believed Jesus was a 'first-century Jewish apocalypticist.' Meaning he believed Jesus lived.

Maybe like the famous atheist H.G. Wells, Michael Grant and Bart Ehrman don't know their stuff.

peace

First sir, if you'd have read my long pros, you would have noted I did not use Grant to prove my conclusion that Jesus was a myth, but rather I used Grant to show how one conducts a historical investigation, mainly into earlier historians.  The consequence of this process, indirectly, is how I arrived at my conclusion. 

Second, Grant is absolutely correct in his analysis, in fact I agree with him.  No modern historian (myself included) can take ANY historical account as factual to the degree that we can look at, say for example, anything from the seventeenth century onward.  There are a great deal of Pagan personages in which we accept as historical for reasons that include things that are not present in Jesus' case - for example the miracle attribute. 

 It is easy to accept the idea that Strato of Lampsacus lived, as nobody who writes of him claimed that he healed the sick or rose from the dead.  He was also considered one of the greatest scientists in antiquities, he wrote dozens of works as quoted by other authorities but he was an atheist, and not one of his writings survived.  All that we have today is a handful of quotes that have made it through from other writers.  But he is regarded as historical because we have no reason to doubt his authenticity - his claims are normal and not supernatural.  Would you consider Hercules a real person?  What about Sisyphus?  Or what about Oedipus?  Probably not.  And most historians hold the same veiwpoint - that these characters are probably dubious creations or evolutions of earlier mythical creations.  Jesus is no exception to this rule. 

Third, it is the degree in which I was discussing above in which the Gospel accounts are rendered dubious and suspicious. 

Again, I was not citing Ehrman as evidence for the non-existence of Jesus, rather I cited him as evidence in the destruction or burial of manuscripts.  Please read what I write so I don't have to go to the absurd level of correcting you.  You've wasted a good deal of my time retyping what I had already stated in detail above.  It would have only taken you two minutes to read but instead it has taken me twenty minutes to type up a response.

 

Now where do you get a strawman like that?  The problem is not so much that they do not know their stuff, but as stated in my previous post, which you really need to read (or reread) is that H.G. Wells wrote before the 1950's, in fact he died one year prior to the Nag Hammadi codices being uncovered!  He, like that of Bultmann and Rousset did not have the knowledge we possess today on the Gnostics.  So for him, it was more probable that Jesus existed then it was that he didn't. 

Today we have jumped leaps and bounds beyond what Wells knew, not only about the church but about historical criticism.As for Ehrman and Grant, I am not faulting them for believing in Jesus' historicity.  I am not going to overstate my position like you have - I know there are many scholars out there who have accepted the idea of Jesus' historicity.  However I believe this is because of two factors:

1.) Bias (the most obvious) - the world is made up of 75% of Christians - they are the majority.  And in the United States it is the same amount - roughly 75%.  It stands to reason that most scholars are going to have Christian backgrounds and have a desire for Christ to be real.  That doesn't mean he was.

2.) Misinformation.  This is difficult, as there is a lot of misinformation about Mythicism.  Most scholars think of Mythicists like that of Atwill who wrote the book Caesar's Messiah, which is a disgrace in my opinion to every Mythicist out there. There are Mythicists who are not honest enough to fact check and they - like you do at times and a lot of people - overstate their position to an absurd degree.  It is because of this that Mythicism has not rooted itself firmly in the scholarly position.

Also, consider this; if your main focus is not on the historicity of a specific character, details are easily missed or not even considered.  Ehrman has spent a lot of time on textual analysis, but not so much concerned is he about the historicity of Jesus.  To him it’s not important, and I would venture to say the same thing about Grant.  To Grant, his interests lies in the historians of antiquities, not so much the ideas of the Christ mythos, so pointing them out to me as evidence for the existence of Christ is really an irrelevant ploy.  It takes a LOT of methodical research on not just the New Testament to discover the lies in the epistemology we’re all taught when we’re growing up from Christian families.  I’ve been studying the myth of Jesus for seven years, I guarantee you that is a lot more time spent then Ehrman and Grant combined on the specific subject of the historicity claims concerning Jesus. 

Further, there is, at this point, a shift taking place among that very community towards Mythicism mainly in the past few months with the support of Doherty, Carrier, Price and GA Wells, and a few others.  There are more and more Peer submitted essays going through reviews and publications concerning Mythicism and it is turning heads.  That isn't to say it's swaying people, but there is a shift.

I beseech you, that before you reply again, to read what I wrote earlier and understand where I am coming from.  It took me three HOURS today to type up that reply because I thought you wanted a well-considered, well written report on exactly why I feel the way I do concerning Mythicism - I didn't write it so you would skim over it and make conclusions based on assumptions.  Thank you. 

Based on what evidence? 

Quite the contrary.  What happens when Christians find out their beloved savior didn't really get crucified, die, and rise from the dead?  I bet you it will be more of an impact than if they discovered that he was simply a man.

Based on what evidence?  This doesn't say anything to me.  There were 30+ sects of Jews around the time of the first century - we know most of these.  Richard Carrier lists them in his "Spiritual Body" chapter in The Empty Tomb:

• (1)  Pharisees
• (2)  Sadducees
• (3)  Scribes
• (4)  Hemerobaptists
• (5)  Nasaraeans
• (6)  Ossaeans
• (7)  Herodians
• (  Therapeutae
• (9)   Bana’im
• (10) Hypsistarians
• (11)  Maghariya
• (12)   Masbotheans
• (13)  Galilaeans
• (14) Qumran
• (15)  Samaritans (Four Sects)
• (a)    Essenes
• (b)   Dosithaens
• (c)    Sebuaeans
• (d)   Gorothenes

Paul was a member of the Pharisees, a group of Hellenized Jews who believed in the literal resurrection of the body, but also in Hellenistic-Babylonian astrology.  What Carrier shows in his Spiritual Body chapter is that Paul's idea of the resurrection was not the same as the Pharisees he once was part of.  For example, Carrier states:

"The vast diversity o Jewish ideology establishes the possibility, but the existence of a two-body doctrine can be demonstrated specifically. First, we know the concept of a purely spiritual 'salvation' (the soul lives forever in paradise, or sometimes hell, without a body) was held by many Jews in the time of Christ.  This is proven directly by Jubilees 23-25 and a redaction in 1 Enoch (92-105), as well as other Jewish apocrypha.  Even the Pharisees conceived of souls separable from the body that wait for the body to decay, then go to heaven or hell, even raise complaints with angels about where they ended up, or hold conversations with the living, all before the general Resurrection ever happens.  It is a very small step to go from that to an idea of the departed soul becoming or being clothed in an entirely new body.  And we have indications of just such a view in two prominent Jewish writers: Philo and Josephus." (Pp. 113)

"From the Rabbinical material we have ample evidence of how at least one sect of the Pharisees dealt with those who doubted the resurrection (of the body before Christ – Ed). There are three general types of attack that keep recurring in the sources, requiring an answer: those that challenge the claim that the resurrection can be deduced from scripture, those that challenge whether God can even accomplish such a thing, and those that challenge the idea of the resurrection with the question about what form it will take. The first kind of argument is answered with copious citations and exegesis of biblical passages.  The second is answered with analogies from observed facts.  And the third is answered with a clever harmonizing of details in resurrection doctrine.  The first type of argument is the most frequent.  The second type is exemplified by a passage in the Talmud: “An emperor said to Rabban Gamaliel: ‘You maintain that the dead will revive, but they turn to dust, and can dust come to life?” The rabbis answer him with analogies involving claymolding and glassmaking, then the spontaneous generation of moles and snails, then with an argument that the soul and body must be reunited so they can be judged together. In every case, the challenge can only be answered by proving resurrection possible with logical argument and evidence from the natural and human world.” (Pp. 114 )

In regards to Paul on this idea, Carrier states the following, "We have established (over the previous several pages – Ed) that Paul did not hold to the resurrection doctrine of a Rabbinical Pharisee, but something substantially different, in some respects, exactly the opposite.  This should not be surprising, since upon conversion Paul came to regard the trappings of the Pharisees as “mere rubbish” (skybala or skubala - Phil. 3:8 ).  Unlike the Pharisee, Paul explains, a Christian “trusts not in the flesh” (ouk en sarki pepoithotes or ouk en sarki pepoiqoteV). The true circumcision, for instance, is spiritual no physical.” (Pp. 118 )

And again, “Paul would have known everything pertinent to believing Christ’s resurrection really happened: he attests to speaking with God directly, knows the primary witnesses, and attests to having spoken with them and to having visited them in Jerusalem.  It seems improbable Paul himself would remain a convert without checking any of the evidence – for if we are to suppose this, then we can hold no trust in anything Paul affirms.  It is therefore peculiar that Paul only provides two kinds of evidence in support of Christ’s resurrection: scripture and various epiphanies like his own roadside vision.  On the hypothesis that Jesus rose in the same body that died (and proved this by submitting that body to handling by disciples and eating fish, and by the very words of Jesus himself), such an approach makes little sense.  Too many unanswered questions arise.How could the Corinthians have any doubt about the kind of body Jesus rose in, when they would have had such specific accounts of it?  And why would Paul never once appeal to those accounts in making his case?  It cannot be that the Corinthians were doubting Christ’s resurrection, since Paul makes it clear that denial of his resurrection is the unforeseen consequence of their doubts, and therefore not one of the things they are actually doubting.  Therefore, doubts over the metaphysical minutiae of Christ’s resurrection could not have led to doubting the resurrection of everyone else….But though Paul insists on there being no difference, he never cites any testimony, of Jesus or those who saw him raised, as to the nature of his resurrected body.  This is the first puzzle.The second puzzle is:  How was Paul’s elaborate answer supposed to end the dispute?  If the problem were merely one of identifying how we are like Christ and thus will be raised in the same way, then that is what Paul would have argued.  But he doesn’t.  Instead, he discourses on metaphysical minutiae, clearly aimed at resolving some misunderstanding about the nature of the resurrected body in general.  Why?  On the same-body hypothesis this doesn’t make much sense.  The response for Paul in that case would be to list the eye-witness evidence pertaining to the nature of Christ’s raised body and then directly eliminate whatever ‘difference’ between us and him the Corinthians were stumbling over.  So why does Paul respond in an entirely difference way?  Why does he never mention the material witness, or the particular stumbling block tripping up the Corinthians?  Why does he never resort to any of the Pharisaic descriptions of continuity between the dead and the raised body, which answered the very same worry for them?  More puzzling questions.” (Pp. 120-21)

“In contrast, consider how later Christians defended the resurrection against doubters (who included both pagans and Christians).  Their approach is quite the opposite of Paul’s.  First of all, their thesis is exactly what we would expect from someone who believed the flesh would be raised: as Justin succinctly puts it, “the resurrection is a resurrection of the flesh which died.”  So why wouldn’t Paul ever say anything like that?  There is no logical explanation—other than the obvious: Paul didn’t say it because he didn’t believe it.  Likewise the arguments they (the later Christians) deploy are exactly what we would expect from someone who believed the flesh would be raised.  Just like the Pharisees, they recognize and address the problem of wounds and blemishes.  Just like the Pharisees, they prove their point using analogies, especially the very same analogy (claymolding), but many others besides, which illustrate continuity and reassembly. Just like the Pharisees they insist that the body and the soul must be reunited to be judged together, and to restore the “whole man.”  Indeed, as Athenagoras puts it, “it is absolutely necessary” that soul and body be restored together, “for it is impossible” for the same man to rise otherwise.  If it is impossible, if it is absolutely necessary, how could Paul have failed to say so?  Why doesn’t he berate the Corinthians for believing that the soul can be saved without a body?  Why, indeed, does he never even mention a soul?  Why does Paul show no interest whatever in the problem of wounds or deformities?  How is it that Paul never resorts to obvious analogies like claymolding or shipbuilding (like Christians following Paul in the century to come did – Ed)?  It simply makes no sense.  Unless Paul believed something fundamentally different from what these later Christians did.” (Pp. 123)

I cite these to show that Paul did not believe that Christ literally lived – but rather he believed in a dual-body or two-body doctrine taught by the Essene sect of Jews (Josephus, Wars 2:8:11, 154-5). 

In fact there is a lot Paul believed in that later Christians called Heresy – especially the Gnostic ideas of Christ as a spiritual personality and not as a historical one.  I make this case elsewhere, feel free to search the forums for such evidences.  =)

It’s really quite easy to see whether there is plausible reason to doubt or not to doubt the existence of a historical Jesus.  What do the sources closest to Jesus’ supposed life say about him?  And compare these to what later sources say.  The most damning evidence against Jesus’ historicity is Paul, who wrote the earliest, and merely a few decades after Christ supposed lived. 

I hope this has been informative. 

Rook, when you make a list, make sure that you don't type the 8 and the parantheses together. Otherwise the list looks like this:

7)

9)

You know? Put a space between 8 and the parentheses. Like this:

7)

8 )

9)

Ya feel me?

What codices from the Nag Hammadi do you believe would have convinced H.G. Wells that Jesus never existed?

 

I wasn't trying to make a claim I was merely asking a question. Do you think it is possible for a historical Jesus to have existed, but still have ended up a myth?







I was trying to make the point that a real person can become myth. I was trying to leave the Christian perspective out of the conversation. For sure, their Jesus never existed.







I was trying to say that Paul indeed claimed to persecute Christians. He must have referred to some group that existed prior to the statement. The group he was referring to was also the group he joined. Therefore there must have been Christians that existed within two decades of the execution. It seems more likely that there was a real person that sparked the legends. Besides, whether or not Paul believed there was a real Jesus is not relevant.

I know, where is my evidence. If I am right that Jesus was likely a poor apocalyptic teacher/philosopher from the backwoods in Judea who was able to gather a small following (maybe similar to David Koresh). That this teacher was only influential to the poor peasants who accepted his message of hope, that the end was near and the kingdom of God was soon to come. How much evidence would you expect to have survived? The people who joined his little cult were peasants, who could not read and write. If there was a Jesus it is likely he couldn't as well. The only evidence would have been the word of mouth that passed for a few decades to Paul and the fact that there were remnants of his followers still around.

I don't claim to know much about myths, but I would wager a guess that few myths (myths by your definition) are successful when started that close to the event. If you have any instances feel free to share.

Looking forward to it. Dazzle me.

Alexander's teacher was Aristotle.

Aristotle writes about Alexander: 

http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_t04.html

 

Ummm...Rook? You might consider the possibility that Paul is also mythologized into a Hellenic Jew, given that he enjoys greater status as a holy man among the Gnostics who borrowed heavily from Mithraism, ancient Egyptian religion (see also the Apocalypse of Paul, I think from the Nag Hammadi codexes), and the Book of Enoch (missing from current Christian Bibles of Western versions).

Gnostics have claimed that Rome falsified much of what he wrote, and yet there remains traces of his Gnostic background contained in the New Testament, such as his reference to a "third heaven", etc.

Paul refered to his hometown of Tarsus as "no mean city", and indeed, as a full citizen of Rome with full rights as a full citizen, he's more likely to have been a memeber of a family that was formerly Mithraic ruling class before the Pontus confederation was conquered by Rome circa mid-80's BCE.  Like other conquered ruling families, their state religion AND their royalty were co opted by Rome as suzerains.

A simpler summary is that around the turn of the First Century CE, a Hellenized cult formed around Jesus Christ (Greek: Iêsou Christou) who was a spiritual being which brought about the Gnosis (knowledge) of the Logos (The forethought, or first thought) – sometimes referred to as the Monad or “one” (The Secret Book of John) by which was only achieved through Sophia (or wisdom). It is even said that this being was also a rank, achievable just by attaining Gnosis. (Gospel of Thomas)

I am not sure what you meant by this rook. what are you saying about the gospel of Thomas.

because if you are trying to use the gospel of Thomas in any way to help your case it is not worth your time. I do realize that this book was written by Jesus brother but it still comes down the way that Jesus told Thomas about all of his ideas. In each case that Jesus spoke to Thomas and said somethings controversial it was always one on one. Jesus never spoke and of these ideas to any one else or in front of any one else.

First it's not new.  The tomb has been discovered for over 30 years, and the ossuary boxes have been translated for over 15-20.  There was even a movie made about it many years ago.  All Cameron is doing is remaking  a film and corrupting the evidence.

 I take Carrier's stance on this in that this is akin to Aliens building the Pyramids and Exodus Decoded (Another History Channel or Discover Channel movie which also sucked and that historically failed).  He is resting his points on false premises like that of the Mary coffin which is complete fiction (the story of the Mary Magdallene).  

Everything about this hoax is disgusting.  Where now people like myself, Carrier, Price and others have to do the leg work to prove how fale such claims are.  Even the guy who discovered the damn tomb and found the coffins is calling Cameron a fraud and he would know more then anybody being the guy who had the things in his possesion for thirty years!  And with good reason - how would you like it if you spent three decades on an archaeological find and one day out of nowhere movie producers come in and say "Oh yeah, we'll take over from here, but we're rewriting your research to fit our unscholarly research."

 Cameron is a joke.  

 

 

Sure, however that is not the case.  He's essentially making up the second Mary, and the tomb does not say "Jesus son of Joseph" it says "Jesua" which is rather odd.  Because that is not in any way "Jesus" or "Yeshua" or any transliteration. 

 Also, since when would Jesus have a son, and why would they name him Judas after the one who supposedly had Jesus killed?  And why no discussion of the body and it's condition?  No broken bones, scaring, no marks of crucifixion?  Seems rather odd to me.

 Even if the DNA evidence was concluded the way you claim it, it would not, in any way prove this is the Jesus on which was based the NT. It would be utter special pleading and speculation to do so.  

On top of this, the cast and crew and producers (NOT archaeologists!!) are making the claim - this has not been peer reviewed or gone through any scholarly publication.  That makes it automatically suspicious.  On top of that, they (the creators of the flick) came up with "new ways" to dtermine evidence, which is more or less a way to make forcefully the evidence FIT their conclusions instead of doing it the correct way which is changing the opinions to fit the evidence.  And Cameron is ALREADY known to be dishonest and use pseudo-scholarship to make a quick buck or raise ratings (Exodus Decoded!)

This is a scam, a ay to get money and ratings boosts.  That is ALL this is.  Every couple of years people make shit up about Jesus or the Bible trying to somehow prove Jesus lived or the Bible is historically accurate.  Get to know the difference between hoax and real history - because history does not work the way Hollywood does, and certainly it does not work the way James Cameron would hope it did - and thankfully so!

If I'm correct you have told others that 45% of scholars don't believe that Jesus ever lived. But maybe i'm wrong

http://www.christiancourier.com/articles/read/the_historicity_of_jesus_christ

To question the historicity of Jesus is like exactly like questioning  the historicity of Alexander. 

http://www.search.com/reference/Historical_Jesus

 

^ "The nonhistoricity thesis has always been controversial, and it has consistently failed to convince scholars of many disciplines and religious creeds. ... Biblical scholars and classical historians now regard it as effectively refuted." - Robert E. Van Voorst, Jesus Outside the New Testament: An Introduction to the Ancient Evidence (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2000), p. 16.

 

http://larrycorrell.brinkster.net/TheologicalDictionary/references.aspx?theword=historicity%20of%20Jesus

 

How many times does this idea of Jesus never being born have to be refuted. Scholars have refuted this over and over. You don't have to a Christian but you need to be reasonable. The only people who do not believe in the historicity of Jesus are those that do not want to look at the facts.  

 

 

False, for at least 2 reasons.

1) We have provenace for Alexander

2) Alexander claims are naturalistic claims.

 

 

Once. It has not been accomplished so far.

1) There are no contemporary accounts for jesus.

2) The gospels, which begin with mark, (matthew is an expansion on mark, and an admitted non eyewitness, luke is based on mark and josephus, and again, even sites like CARM concede that he's not an eyewitness) are based on midrash, not eyewitness accounts.

http://www.rationalresponders.com/the_gospels_are_midrash

3) The silence of those who would have been his contemporaries destroys any claims for provenance for jesus.

http://www.rationalresponders.com/a_silence_that_screams

 

Please stop ignoring the facts of the matter.